The ambush
The light is waiting
flexible and jagged
at the end of the passage.
This elastic ink
is getting there again
slowly, unaware.
It becomes crisp and alive
for a moment:
a clear-cut tree
a hillful of trees
olive trees against a tramontana sky.
Then the ambush snaps.
Rippled and sucked
by a greedy south
ink and wind
are swallowed, whole.
Through the very gate, over the threshold
thoughts and branches
words and leaves
bones and pebbles
flesh and soil
melt together in a silent sigh:
they acknowledge with a chill
the power
that deals them such a light death
and then delivers their ghosts
into a black & white flat heaven. . .
—Riccardo Duranti
____
from Poems in lieu of an essay on poems