Obsession

Great woods, your winds oppress me like the heft

Of great cathedral organs; and our hearts,

Shaken with dying groans, are echo chambers,

Vaults where your De profundis still vibrates.

I hate you, Ocean! All your bounding tumults

I find within: the bitter laughter of

A man defeated, all his sobs and insults,

I hear resounding in the sea’s vast laugh.

How you would please me, Night, without those stars

Whose light speaks in a language that I know!

I only seek what’s empty, black and bare.

But darkness is itself a canvas where

My eyes project a thousand vanished souls

Who look at me with a familiar air.