Bistolfi's Cross

Cross that no one sees, that we all feel --

invisible and certain as a wide mountain --

we sleep on you, and on you we live:

your two arms rock us; your shadow bathes us.

Love pretended to make a bed for us, but it was

only your living gaff and your naked beam.

We believed we were running free through the fields

and we never descended from your clench.

Your wood is all of fresh, human blood,

and on you I breathe in my father’s wounds,

and on the dream-nail that wounded you I die.

The lie, that we have seen the nights and days!

We were caught -- as the son on the mother --

on you: from the first wail, to the last agony.


~Gabriela Mistral