English translation by Graziella Sidoli
I watch the orchid on the kitchen table
as it releases a withered flower
from time to time leaving a branch
its freshness now lost and stripped
of its original color
still holding its beauty yet I think
pierced by that last shimmering
light across the orange pleats
of the curtain if it had a voice
it would tell me things of the present
it would say that I’m losing sight of the shape
of the faces of my beloved of the colors
of their eyes the exactness of their profile
of the hands with the gestures and their words
now faint and void even on cell phones
it would tell me that the sea’s vestment
has faded and the horizon is no longer
a line allowing your glance to drift away
that the snow did not swoop down this year
and the grass quietly awaits its returning
it would say that day dreams are nightmares
and the sobbing I hear very far away
is real that the night buried
the best of us in the calvary
of hauling vehicles with beckoning lights
it would tell me that I never really knew life
that it cannot be that a glass is filled only
when the water still runs
and not to take bets on your garment
you cut it instead and stitch it by hand
and this Paschal orchid would say
in good time leaning out from our windows
like the cluster of junipers I see growing
again among thick woods it would tell of the yearning
glow of the invasive clearing of the Resurrection