Why gondolas forgot all their songs
Don’t damn the grieving gondoliers
Bliss belongs to the love that longs
For the faith of a dream that bears its fears!

Our romance with those waterways
Which we had reared with sweat and tears
Is a faint recall in these parched alleys
Mourning the end of those beautiful years!

“Climate has changed” deplores every soul
Gaping at gutters filled with mud
Venice has to pay the lasting toll
Of labors of love baptized by blood!

Those joys’ vein may not spring up again
Lest we pay very dear our misdeeds’ cost
Alas, we’ll bear this perennial pain
History’s holocaust The Venice We Lost!

© 2023 Vikas Chandra