I know they walk holding hands through some
artery of this beloved city.
I know it because these of mine turn pale
since centuries from the cold
of pain, the loneliness, the oblivion
and the trace of emptiness they left.
I know it because I write corny verses
like this one, when I should be
doing the work that I never do.
That I defer in the endless pain,
inlaid into the innermost vein,
impossible to reach no matter how much
the days and years pass away.
What are they doing as I write these words?
Where are their happiest thoughts
plenty of messages going to?
They are walking side by side in the distance,
despite the heaven or hell
they were leaving in their wake.
What do they care about trampling
the flowers, the fresh grass,
the forgiveness given again and again,
when now their fingers are interlacing
under a sky that only for them
is a starry sky?
Do they say the name of dead ones,
of those who wilt, still moaning,
from the exile of their hands?
Are they able to recognize the trace,
the blood with which, when they joined together,
they brought out and were spattered?
Unable to see the red badge of shame
is that one who lives hooked on some eyes,
on some passion and some hands.
That's why this pain refuses to pass away
without being seen when some voice whispers:
"They walked side by side through the Square,
into the night, together, as someone who
ignores those who were ignored."
They don't care about who can see them,
nor the corpses of those
who loved them most and now
are passing by their side.
Are not they afraid of their own shadows?
Are not they afraid of the sentence that life gives,
soon or later?
On their step, slow, firm, compact,
you can hear the royal beat
of that one who fears nothing, waits nothing,
the confidence of a tyrant.
Ah, if life were, at least,
a rose, a stone, a cloud,
anything, something!
And not only this litany of the coward
who names it just to excuse
the horrors that are surrounding him,
the errors with which he weaves his disguise
of semi-human clown.
Then I would ask for retribution
to those that are, on the shore, left behind.
Pillars of salt that failed
to escape from the vile punishment
in the hour of the question, of the doubt,
of the astonished turning back on their steps
when they do not understand why
the flames raze despite
the passion of what was given.
Through some artery of life,
together in the complicity
of what was denied,
I know they walk, singing or laughing,
holding hands.
