The rope

pics by JB 2017

 

Strange world, so different
from mine

All the skyline is changing: the city
is rebuilding herself without worry
about old stones. A church
sadly rests in the shadow

Over me there’s a climber, a worker
on an ice building made with glass, steel.
He clings on overhanging surfaces
without fear: in a thin rope he trusts

Strange people, so different
from mine

I like your so laborious constancy,
your smart way to be alive organised
I am only a poor provincial person
and can’t try to explain my sensations

I don’t know what you tell me while speak
your strange language or where is your God,
where you really are going toward,
what you quite want to build with your love

In the cold morning where I am walking
also I overhang all my claims
and a rope from above is my hope
to be safe despite bad, foolish drives

I am like those church wrecks on the tarmac
under new, haughty, bright towers now.
I beg that all these ropes can hold up
you and me. Can the hope bear our weight
 

London, April, 19th 2017

And finally the Italian version