Notte, serene ombre

We walked down Spanish Steps and I
talked nonsense about the Bird playing the lute
and derailed your reason. A harlequin
might have grasped it.

And suddenly: in the north, it wasn't the evening
ploughing through the album of leaves, no trees.
Wings plough through the air and oars through water,
                                               rotting.
Pigeons go haughty
with a lute under the arm, you see now?
Poor pigeons: only music and lice.

Night, clear shadows, the cradle of the wind,
nothing else.
For though we are together we two,
in infinity surrounded by hours
like slanting Roman numbers in the tower clock,
we are separated by a deep sleep,
the mist of crude logic, the wool of far-off fields,

around all, dead waters.

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