Take and read
You can study history,
Riddles, rumours and gossip,
Pages of crazy electronics,
And suddenly you’re facing
A beggar in the rain and no longer
Know what we are doing in the world.
A ghost grows warm beside you
And taps you on the shoulder.
Golden shower, Danae in foam,
The glitter of life.
You’re being hugged; the sun breaks through.
Someone deciphered a brand new
Cuneiform, kids on their Vespas go
In hot pursuit of Vestal girls.
Everything costs, and everything’s null.
Tolle, lege, St. Augustine,
Take this poem and read.
Don’t mention us
In your unbearable prayers:
It wasn’t for us
Your God suffered.
Poet's Note: The title refers to the famous passage in St. Augustine’s Confessions (Book VIII, XII, paragraph 29) in which he tells the tale of his conversion. A child is singing in a garden, St. Augustine thinks he hears ‘Tolle, lege’ (Take and read), opens the book on his table and reads: ‘Make not provision for the flesh in concupiscence’.
