In Rapallo
Old Homer sleeps safe in the Protestant cemetery,
the son long gone to his private Ithaka,
having sung at length of ΟΥ ΤΙΣ and Jederman:
a half hour spent wandering by the shore,
coffee and a cold bun.
The Madonna has been restored joyfully,
her surcoat as blue as the summer bay,
paint still glistening in the mid-morning light,
my devotions a bouquet and spluttering candles,
a soft chorale at Mass.
Hemingway’s mask glowers over the bar
Where he and the hangers-on used to carouse:
then here is the hotel where Nietzsche once lived,
and Sibleius sat here dreaming of another voyage:
I hum ‘Finlandia’.
They say the lynx has now returned to Italy
and I lay, listening for a sound in the forest,
waiting for her to sing to me once again,
O lynx keep watch on my fire, the clouds have dispersed.
I pray, guard this orchard.
***
O Artemis
And in thy mind beauty,
O Artemis
- Pound, Canto CXIII
A quiet day for once, and the Sun gentles the clouds,
Whilst the cat takes her refuge on the windowsill
Regarding the world outside as her singular amusement.
Her neighbour, her would-be lover, nestles nearby
Dreaming of daring gallantries.
Lunch over, the accounts set straight for this month,
I can clear my desk and browse through the shelves,
Each book telling a tale or two, of loves and hatreds,
Words said in jest but stabbing too deeply:
Then there are songs of praise
And tenderness, like yours for the child Iphigenia.
What then, O Artemis, where is pity for those children
Who now lay broken on the shores of the Euxine Ocean?
Raise your bow, loose an arrow into the burnt sky.
Show us your merciless Beauty.