April 12, 2021: Physical Synthesis of an Idea

Physical Synthesis Of An Idea
 
Deep inside a cave, a chemist has synthesized
A special form of joyful, ecstatic love.
He spends day and night creating more and more of it
In different grades and colors.
He makes it into mortar to brick a wall around his home.
He pours buckets of it into his swimming pool.
He paints it onto his face, and no one knows him.
But they love him!
He mixes it with his lamp oil
And burns it!

 

April 12, 2021: "Refuge of Nocturnal Birds" - Salvatore Quasimodo in "Italian Lit. in Transla.", pg. 335

 A Refuge of Nocturnal Birds

High on a cliff there's a twisted pine;
intently it listens into the abyss
with its trunk curved down like a crossbow.

A refuge of nocturnal birds,
in the deepest hours of night it resounds
with the swift fluttering of wings.

Even my heart has a nest
suspended into the darkness, and a voice;
it, too, lies awake listening at night.