It is poetry’s duty to make sure beauty does not fade away,
To join time and night, to make certain
Donna enjoys pleasures before day
Spreads the infinite colors on the curtain.
Poetry will hunt down Donna, replace with words
And ideas her delicacy of face and hand,
Write “her lovely memories are birds,”
While showing their wings’ shadows criss-crossing across the sand.
“Escape is impossible, but if there is no escape,
There is no bondage. The great blue holds us.”
I spoke this and made certain she heard.
Her reply? “We need something to discuss.”
She disagreed, was sweet and kind
In her disagreement, so I felt I was right.
But of course I understood I had been blind.
I fought her in my mind last night.
It is poetry’s duty to make beauty articulate.
It is poetry’s duty to make an end of words.
It is poetry’s sublimity to seize cunning wit
And hide it in the throats of hidden birds.
Donna travels. Rome sacrificed itself.
Every Greek citizen set their clock in sorrow
That she might be ambassador. Now each tale
Swears she wears white for a white tomorrow.
Donna gives us leave to go.
This is why we are not permanent,
Why the tear quickens, why we are not slow.
We have hurried here to find out what the symbol meant.
We have a chance to attach ourselves to this.
To have pure beauty, without a look, without a kiss,
And to be no longer tormented by the storm
Where things are sometimes cold and things are sometimes warm.