At Cappadocia

Tufa twists into the sky,
fairy chimneys
tall whirling dervish caps,
slender minarets,
thin pinnacles
rock churches
swirling
into the heavens,
reaching.

Rooms hewed out of tufa,
earth harbors,
rounded silos,
cradles,
wombs,
honey combed,
interlocking tunnels,
secret canals
webbed eight stories
into the mantle,
reaching.

ANNA CITRINO is a native Californian who has lived in Turkey, Kuwait, and now Singapore. This poem arises from her encounter with the Turkish landscape, "where the life of the early church speaks in the stones."