Bartolomeo

When you too stop in this great
motorway caff and see
your own exhausted face run
on the windows, on the aluminium counter,

it'll be an evening like this
that breaks up in wind the light
and clouds of the day, it'll be
a great moment:
only you and I will know.
You will set off again
slightly upset, with almost a stir
of memory and the separate silences
of the shelves of objects, the petrolpump men and their caps,
you'll feel behind your nimbly
becoming a poem.

The happiness of time is saying yes
you are there, a hidden power
gives you a shock, not my
maturity, not my growing old -
the real likeness between us
is in a place where it can't be seen.

My son, my traveller,
it's going to be your hell, your talent
this sense of hearing like a dog's or angel's
which picks up as one tune the swing of the planets
and the fall of a pill in glass
two storeys down, where two old people
are being cared for.
This very noisy love
will be your father, the real one.
Stay longer here in the motorway caff,
it'll please me in the dark to see you again…