from The Night Fountain (Selected uncollected poems)
The Burning Myrrh
So will we sing, will we sing in vain
all the roses in our greenhouses,
the bitter perfume of rich lands,
lakes of ciano-painted dreams;
dawn owls risen from a wash-basin
of blue cornflowers and violets
withered at once before the sun,
big and serene like a sacred fire?
Stars fly over our heads
like butterflies that with the slow whirr
of white wings over deserted fields
go into the dark looking for flames.
Ciano: a literary term meaning ‘blue’.
Translated by Marco Sonzogni, Gerald Dawe
Page(s) 149-150
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