L
THE BLACK LILY

The black lily of the monastery garden,
the one that used to know your anguish,
has lost its bloom since it is no longer watered,
either by the scholastic sweat of your brow

or the tears from your ecclesiastical eyes,
ever since you saw that red mantle
under which your ambition loosened
the cord that you had kept so flexible.

Beneath the prayers and the whispers
of the refectory the breeze brings the sound
of the Tempter’s laughter to the black lily

of the garden. And to its fateful murmur,
as if he were hearing mass, the black lily
contritely bends down to pick up its bud.