Chi vuol esser lieto, sia: <br />di doman non c'e certezza. <br />-Lorenzo di Medici <br /> <br />In the poplars' lengthening shadows on this hill, <br />amid the rows of marigolds and earth, <br />and through the boxhedge labyrinth we walk, <br />together, to the choiring twilight bells. <br />Their fugue of echoes echoes through the hills <br />and sings against this time-streaked, flowering wall <br />where breezes coax the potted lemon trees, <br />the pendant, yellow fruit and shiny leaves. <br />Beneath the flaming watercolor sky, <br />the cultivated, terraced dropp of hill, <br />a gleaming city with its towers and domes, <br />the Arno shimmering as its drowns the sun. <br /> <br />Chameleon-like, I am tranformed by light, <br />and wine has blurred the edges of the night. <br />What gifts I give on this or any night <br />may be refracted in another light. <br />You understnad this in a foreign tongue, <br />but vaguely, for these things will not translate. <br />I feel it in the cadence of your walk: <br />you are not whom moonlight can create. <br />And you will think the loosening of these thighs, <br />the sudden, urging whiteness of the throat <br />are muted but distinctly pagan cries <br />and in your triumph you will fairly gloat. <br /> <br />Tonight the unplucked lemons almost gleam. <br />And with their legs, the crickets harmonize. <br />The trees are rustling an uncertain hymn, <br />and unseen birds contribute trembling cries. <br />When did the summer censor choiring things? <br />We know the blood is brutal though it sings.<br /><br />Erica Jong<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/eveningsong-at-bellosguardo/
