The Seagulls, Attilio Bertolucci, 1971

“I had never seen seagulls on the banks of the Tiber
the feathers and the waters are changing in this late winter.

I leaned on the granite like those do
who watch over their own life or death using

an intense patience but my eyes distracted
they followed the rapacious glides of the leaden-silver birds

until the tapered bellies and beaks were satisfied
already shining on other waves in a different sun

for the inevitable progress of time my
tired and still voracious pupils now turned

on the mobile emporium of the crowded streets of Rome
desperately searching in the hour of hypoglycemia

of a sudden food known only to me
in a joyful and sterile revelation in the shadow-light

sanguine from attics and meridian cornices
smoking on the hills the green branches of the pruning

until the merciful sky of the return is darkened."

Attilio Bertolucci, The Seagulls, Winter Journey, 1971

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