Why does he shut up the flying man?
Why is he hiding up there behind the rocks,
why, under the spiny crown of the stars,
does not he come down here, lighter than the wind?
We have prepared fires and sheep,
on the picks are hanging like piverts
our nameless scouts.
The sea like an altar smokes.
Why is he waiting to signal us?
Does not he see that beneath us the earth boils
and the sun burns our throats,
since by the airs he has come?
We sent him wax and flights
out of our cages in our fertile gardens,
to shape wings that guide us,
as yesterday himself had promised us.
Is not it true that he is a heavenly man, that
fishermen from dawn had seen
descend from the distant radiant
and put your foot on the rocks opposite?
The sea spits stones and iodine
and already in a human voice she begins to speak,
walled between the hills, the ferocious beast.
There is no more ford than towards the sky.
Does not he see us at least from there?
On the hillside, here is the morning that goes down
and on his pink swing
the white cage of the temple to the sacrifices.
But why on the stairs is he sitting
to burn dry pine twigs,
and why does he not wear wings but sandals,
the man who can fly?
We stayed here only a handful of the living,
having cursed family and paternal inheritance
and the knife caresses our tender neck,
but he is silent and squeezes a handful of fluff.
And he stuffs his ears with soft wax,
and the birds he gets out of the cages,
and alive he plucks them — and he eats
their eggs the flying man.
… on the embers dripping of sheep’s tallow,
the day is shining … And someone shouts from below
it’s time to sow barley
and prepare us all for combat.
