"To Marianne Moore"

(by Carlos Barbarito)

If the idea of immortality is excluded,
there remains dust,
grass,
water that forms puddles,
the branch from which the bird sings,
a certain mystery that reason
supposes a fleeting shadow.

There remains, in the end, life,
the room where a woman pulls on her stockings,
the other room, perhaps adjoining,
where a couple undress
and embrace, and afterwards
say to each other:
"we shall not die."

("To Marianne Moore " by Carlos Barbarito)
(translation by: Brian Cole )