CHARTRES AND THE NEWS Poem by Davide Rondoni

Also for the children who go away in the dark

and you can't hold them back
not even as blood
beloved between your hands

lies Chartres which rises against the sky

an hour of ugly train from the capital

great rock that fills up with spires and figures
calling on the only God that understands

what it means to lose a son, see him
vanish, see him
go in the arms, so far too open,
of the wind

and now lower the head

on the bench, on the fleeting light
of rain in the fields

on the window pain that trembles
in the empty compartment

under the eye-lids the fire
that exults and cries
in those large windows

and wears out the gaze until it leaves
on the face only the beginnings.