In some city, Trieste or Udine,
        on an avenue of lindens,
in the spring, when leaves
        burst into colour
        I’ll fall
under a sun that blazes
        yellow and high
        and I will close my eyes
        leaving the sky to its splendour.

Under a linden, warm with green,
        I will fall into the darkness
of my death that squanders
        the lindens, the sun.
        Beautiful boys
flying out from school,
        curls at their temples.
will be running in that light
        I have only just lost.

I will be young still,
        in a pastel shirt
and with soft hair spilling
        into the bitter dirt.
        I will be warm still
and a boy running on the warm
                asphalt of the avenue
        will lay a hand
        on the crystal of my lap.


’74—The Day of My Death

                        …if the seed of grain, fallen on the earth, does not die, it remains 
                        alone, but if it dies it gives great fruit.
                        —(John, 12.24 cited by Dostoevsky)

In some city, Trieste or Udine,
        on an avenue of lindens,
when leaves change colour…
        he lived
with the vigor of a young man,
        in the midst of things/ at the heart of it all
and he gave, to the few
men he knew, everything.

Then, for the love of those boys
        with curls at their foreheads
boys like him until just before
        the stars overhead
        altered their light—
he would have liked to give his life
        for all the world of strangers,
himself, a stranger, a little saint,
a solitary seed lost in the sand.

But instead he wrote
        sacred/blessed poetry
believing that way
        his heart would flourish.
        Days went by
in a labour that used
        up the grace in his heart:
the seed did not perish,
and he remained alone.

The Day of His Death, November 1 1975

                        …if the seed of grain, fallen on the earth, does not die, it remains
                        alone, but if it dies it gives great fruit.
                                —John, 12.24


In some city, not after all
        Trieste or Udine, but in Rome,
though not on its streets of ancient stone
        but on the margins, in shanty-town –
not in spring, on some avenue of flowering
        yellow linden, but golden in autumn,
with the first cold rain, with the leaves he falls
        the sun well past its gloaming
in the no light of night alone.

For the love of boys, or for the love of one lost
        boy with curls darkening his brow,
a beautiful boy, a frog prince, he would give his last
        lira for the love of this or any stranger
to whom he owes nothing, or all, a bit of money, a hot
        meal, an embrace with no backward
looking goodbye. In blue jeans, his shirt now blood-
        soaked, his body cooling, his body cooler
        than the sand under his shoes, sand

warm when he was still warm moments
        before and forever
closed his eyes under blinking stars,
a man not yet old, a man not
        a saint, but with a saint’s
love for strangers, lying face up in the dirt,
        on a feast day, on All Saints’ at last
a seed squandered no longer
        beaten on the beaten ground of Ostia.