The storm
Les princes n'ont point d'yeux pour voir ces grand's merveilles ,
Leurs mains ne servent plus qùà nous persécuter...
                                             AGRIPPA D'AUBIGNÈ, A Dieu

The storm that trickles upon the hard
leaves of the magnolia, long thunder-rolls
of March and the hail,
(the sounds of crystal in your night-
nest surprise you, of the gold
that has dulled from mahogany, the page-edge
of bound volumes, there still burns
a grain of sugar inside the shell
of your eyelid)

the flash that crystallizes
trees and walls and surprises them in that
eternity of instant--marble, manna
and destruction--which, graved in yourself,
you are condemned to bear and which ties you
more than love to me, strange sister,-

then the raw crash, the rattles, the quivering
of tambourines on the furtive pit,
the trampling of the fandango and on high
a gesture, here and there frenetic...

                                                 As when
you turned and with your hand, cleared then
your forehead of its cloud of hair,

greeted me--to go into the dark.


(Eugenio Montale, La bufera)