PIER PAOLO PASOLINI
From Selected Poems

The birds sang in the dust
in an elaborate weave, ambiguous,
deafening, prey to existence

poor passions lost between the modest
summits of groves of mulberry and elder;
and I, like them, in secluded places

reserved for the lost and pure,
would wait for evening to fall,
for the silent smells of fire

and joyous misery to fill the air,
for the Angelus bell to toll, veiled
in the new peasant mystery

fulfilled in the ancient mystery.