Nearby, is in a section of the fortress,
there was another little child--
somewhat older, a few years older--
hideously deformed and stupid.
I mean, idiotic, really.
Held all day long by a little sister--
a big sister of 12 years old, say,
who was beautiful like a saint.
And spent all her time nursing this little monster.
[LAUGHTER]
And I taught it one trick--
to greet passers by--
goats, persons, geese-- anything,
with the one gesture of ciao to our Italian gesture
of greeting.
And these two children in the same spot
make the poem as I see it.
The child next door.
The child next door is defective, because the mother--
seven brats already in that prelude of dirt--
took a pill or did something to herself
she thought would not hurt.
But it did.
And no good.
For there came this monstrous other.
The sister is 12, is beautiful, like a saint.
She sits with the monster all day with pure love, calm eyes.
Has taught the trick to make ciao, Italian wise.
It crooks hand in that greeting, she
smiles her smile without taint.
I pass, and her triptych beauty and joy stir hate.
Is it hate in my heart?
Fool, doesn't she know that the process is not
that joyous or simple to bless or unbless the malfeasance
of nature or the filth of fate?
Can it bind or lose that beauty in that kind--
beauty of benediction?
We must trust our hope to prevail.
That heart-joy in beauty be wisdom before beauty fail
and be gathered like air in the rock of the world's wind.
I think of your goldness, of joy of the other child,
and how empires grind, stars are hurled.
I smile stiff, saying ciao, saying ciao, and think,
this is the world.