The window here is hung in the west wall.
It lays on the opposite wall a square of light.
Sliced by the lop-sided slats of the broken blind,
flattened against the east wall, the light
hangs like a brilliant painting. Now, and now,
the shadow of a swallow shoots across it.
I turn around to see the birds themselves,
scores of birds, hundreds, a thousand swallows.
I try to keep a single bird. I lose it.
In all that spinning not one bird spins loose.
I lose interest and turn around to my work.
My eyes are caught again by the square of light.
I lean back in my chair and watch the picture
moving up the wall, the single birds
living out their lives in a frame of light,
until it touches the ceiling and fades out.
I turn around again and the swallows are gone.
The sun is gone. This minute Rome is dark
as only Rome is dark, as if somebody
could go out reaching toward it, and find no Rome.
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