Poeti Romani

I was so very aware
that the afternoon was dying in the domes,
and all around me sounds froze,
turned to winding pillars.

I was so very aware
that the undulant drift of scents
was collapsing into darkness,
and it seemed I had never tasted
the cold.

Suddenly
I awoke so far away
and strange,
wandering behind my face
as though I had hidden my feelings
in the sensless relief of the moon.

I was so very aware
that
I did not recognize you, and perhaps
you come, always,
every hour, every second,
moving through my vigil - then -
as through the spectre of a triumphal arch.

Then we met more often.
I stood at one side of the hour,
you at the other,
like two handles of an amphora.
Only the words flew between us,
back and forth.
You could almost see their swirling,
and suddenly,
I would lower a knee,
and touch my elbow to the ground
to look at the grass, bent
by the falling of some word,
as though by the paw of a lion in flight.
The words spun between us,
back and forth,
and the more I loved you, the more
they continued, this whirl almost seen,
the structure of matter, the beginnings of things.

Green rings around the eyes, this grass in vibrant motion
arcs tenderly about you, at a distance-
you summon it, then fling it round, broken
by your laugh of youth and innocence.

Stretched under you, this curling dome of grass
would sound its voices in the gravel-
but you are unaware - and now you pass
through foreign stars, a fool.

Silence strikes the tree trunks, upon itself retracing,
turns to distance, turns to sand.
I have turned my only face toward the sun,
my shoulders scatter leaves in this racing.
Cutting through the field - up on two shoes
my horse leaps, steaming, from the clay.
Ave, I am turning to you, I, Ave!
The sun has burst across the heavens, crying.

Stone drums are sounding, the sun grows,
the vault of heaven, alive with eagles, before him,
collapses into steps of air, and glows.
Silence turns to blue wind,
the spur of my shadow grows
in the ribs of the field.

The sun snaps the horizon in two.
The vault of heaven pulls down its dying prison cells.
Blue spears, with no returning,
I discard my visions, both of them -
they meet him, sweet and grave.
My horse rises on two shoes.
Ave, tide of light, ave!

The sun ascends from objects, crying,
shakes the borders, voiceless and grave.
My soul meets Him, Ave!
My horse rises on two shoes.
My pale mane burns on the wind.

You are so beautiful in winter!
The field stretched on its back, near the horizon,
and the trees stopped running from the winter wind ...
My nostrils tremble
and no scent
and no breeze
only the distant, icy smell
of the suns.
How transparent your hands are in winter!
And no one passes -
only the white suns revolve in quiet worship.
and the thought spreads in circles
ringing the trees
in twos
in fours.