Like an ugly bird
of ill omen,
the night noiselessly beats
its great black wings
and spreads them
over the earth.
A last flake of light,
carried in the air by the wind,
struggles with the darkness,
is broken, is spent.
The little bell of a convent rings
and the sound moans in all the valley.
Bony and spectral,
his arms crossed,
motionless in his cell
before a white Christ
on a black cross,
a Capuchin Friar murmurs:
“Monk, another day of your life
is lost.”
