In some city, Trieste or Udine,
on an avenue of lindens,
in the spring, when leaves
burst into colour,
I’ll fall
under a sun that blazes
yellow and high
and I will close my eyes
leaving the sky to its splendour.
Under a linden, warm with green,
I will fall into the darkness
of my death, a death that squanders
the lindens, the sun.
Beautiful boys
flying out from school,
curls at their temples.
will be running in that light
I have only just lost.
I will be young still,
in a pastel shirt
and with soft hair spilling
into the bitter dirt.
I will be warm still
and a boy running on the warm
asphalt of the avenue
will lay a hand
on the crystal of my lap.
. . . if the seed of grain, fallen on the earth, does not die,
it remains alone, but if it dies it gives great fruit.
John 12:24 (cited by Dostoevsky)
In some city, Trieste or Udine,
on an avenue of lindens,
when leaves changed colour . . .
he lived
with the vigour of a young man,
in the midst of things,
and he gave, to the few
men he knew, everything.
Then, for the love of those boys
with curls at their foreheads
boys like him until just before
the stars overhead
altered their light —
he would have liked to give his life
for the world of strangers,
himself, a stranger, a little saint,
a solitary seed lost in the sand.
But instead he wrote
sacred poetry
believing that way
his heart would flourish.
Days went by
in a labour that used
up the grace in his heart:
the seed did not perish,
and he remained alone.
. . . if the seed of grain, fallen on the earth, does not die,
it remains alone, but if it dies it gives great fruit.
John 12:24
In some city, not after all
Trieste or Udine, but in Rome,
though not on its streets of ancient stone
but on the margins, in shantytown —
not in spring, on some avenue of flowering
yellow linden, but golden in autumn,
with the first cold rain, with the leaves he falls
the sun well past its gloaming
in the no light of night alone.
For the love of boys, or for the love of one lost
boy with curls darkening his brow,
a beautiful boy, a frog prince, he would give his last
lira for the love of this or any stranger
to whom he owes nothing, or all, a bit of money, a hot
meal, an embrace with no backward
looking goodbye. In blue jeans, his shirt now blood-
soaked, his body cooling, his body cooler
than the sand under his shoes, sand
warm when he was still warm moments
before and forever
closed his eyes under blinking stars,
a man not yet old, a man not
a saint, but with a saint’s
love for strangers, lying face up in the dirt,
on a feast day, on All Saints’ at last
a seed squandered no longer
beaten on the beaten ground of Ostia.