THE GHOSTS OF MAY DAWN

A huge hush of light among
threads of twitters and brushing acacias.
The hedge in bloom putting shutters
under pressure, with stares on window-sills,
on walls thinning our wills.
In your blue, steady and sailing bed
dishevelled by branching shadows,
by the rustling and rumbling horizon.
It’s a hush with amber hammocks
stretched to the limit, with
street-stones where dust is skimmed,
lightened by wisps of breeze and the strength
of vacancy, of nobody’s breath.

And in the hush they come, a crowd
like the bud of a still unknown wish
smooth and hard like pomegranate,
their whispering has the slanting lash
of swallows’ wings.
They swiftly sit on verandas and rooftops
dangling their legs, disentangling their locks,
spreading glances at once, like roots and dots.
And there’s a gladness in not knowing
if they have anything to resettle.
Any mighty, echoing wrong.
It seems they perspire a quiet
that assists you. The waiting you want.

Now, in the lay of this sky.
Before the ambush of sunrise.


Maybe I put this poem in the blog in the past once. What has happened now is that I re-enjoyed deeply its strange, maybe a bit ackward imagery, while translating it, with great difficulty, into Italian for a friend.