Who in your service
Can but colors make
Which from their effects
And not their substance take
The form of time.
Service such as these Alpine
Mountains may billow
And shake out towns,
Vineyards and potatoes,
Apples and meat—
Desgracia — one such peas
— Pezzo if you will —
Is not disgrace at all,
But that is glacier
To its crags clings.
It is darkened just now.
What lives up there?
It is August where I am.
Where I am I cannot see
The Adda, that brought
Such wealth.
Below
It is a body, veins of roads.
I see the Bernina Pass.
I hear flies and wind in the birch,
The tread of those who have had enough
Of this heights
And soon will, if they so choose,
Let bells make substance
Out of Sunday,
Let color solidify.
Fr. Andrew O’Connor
Written in Valtellia, Italy
August 19, 2023
