from "Roman Poems" by Pier Paolo Pasolini

The Presence  
                       to Maria Callas

What was lost was heavenly
and the sick soul saintly.
Nothingness was a wind which inexplicably changed
                                                                                           direction
but was always well aware of its end.
In the nothingness which moved,
inspired on high, capricious as a brook below,
what always mattered was a story
which in some way had started
and had to go on: your story.
Who had called for me there?
Every morning the tragedy of existence began again,
behind the shutters, first closed, then open,
as in a church, as if a divine wind blew in vain
or only for a few witnesses --
Then those habits, sisters to tragedy --
The sea and its wind received all our passionate praises --
Your "being is perceiving" had tremendous obstacles
                                                                                            to overcome

and each victory was a poor victory,
and you had to begin again at once
like a plant that constantly needs water.
I, however, Maria, am not a brother;
I fulfill other functions that I don't know of,
not that of brotherhood




again, to c.m.m. jan 2013