| From the book The Wild Rose | Legends and Fantasies
(1976 - 1978) |  |
| In The Mood of Leopardi | O numi, o, numi
Al Italia | Neither the powerful spirit, nor refined mind,
nor the heart, crushed down deep,
nor the feminine happiness of inspiration
will visit or save you.
You sleep, like a drunk. Your Savonarola
never believed. It is more dear to carry
brushwood to the bonfire than while they sleep
to let him be depressed, argue and threaten a little.
Your Mozart smiles at the murderers,
and not for money – but so as to survive
among the living and then, somewhere else...
The children play a double game. The old men
don’t dare to remind themselves
of what they have done. Alas that lazy sneer
is growing within me
like a tumour, eating into other matter.
Your Ecclesiastes talks such rubbish that
peasant women in the kitchen would be ashamed of –
but shame has flown off from here long ago.
How about your mercy? your meekness?
and your much-sung humility?
The well-fed are right.
Why then are you silent?
Say something to me. | | Richard McKane | |
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