(For Rossana Sironi) <br /> <br />You should not have <br />ripped out your image <br />taken from us, from the world, <br />a portion of beauty. <br />What can we do <br />we enemies of death, <br />bent to your feet of rose, <br />your breast of violet? <br />Not a word, not a scrap <br />of your last day, a No <br />to earth’s things, a No <br />to our dull human record. <br />The sad moon in summer, <br />the dragging anchor, took <br />your dreams, hills, trees, <br />light, waters, darkness, <br />not dim thoughts but truths, <br />severed from the mind <br />that suddenly decided, <br />time and all future evil. <br />Now you are shut <br />behind heavy doors <br />enemy of death. <br /> <br /> <br />Who cries? <br />You have blown out beauty <br />with a breath, torn her, <br />dealt her the death-wound, <br />without a tear <br />for her insensate shadow’s <br />spreading over us. <br />Destroyed solitude, <br />and beauty, failed. <br />You have signalled <br />into the dark, <br />inscribed your name in air, <br />your No <br />to everything that crowds here <br />and beyond the wind. <br />I know what you were <br />looking for in your new dress. <br />I understand the unanswered question. <br />Neither for you nor us, a reply. <br />Oh, flowers and moss, <br />Oh, enemy of death.<br /><br />Salvatore Quasimodo<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/enemy-of-death/
