Poem of the week

TO LAZE AT NOON by Eugenio Montale

To laze at noon, pale and thoughtful,
by a blazing garden wall; to listen,
in brambles and brake, to blackbirds
scolding the snake's rustle.

To gaze at the cracked earth, the leaves
of vetch, to spy the red ants filing past,
breaking, then twining, massing
at the tips of the tiny sheaves.

To peer through leaves at the sea,
scale on scale, pulsing in the distance,
while the cicada's quavering cry
shrills from naked peaks.

And then walking out, dazed with light,
to sense with sad wonder
how all of life and its hard travail
is in this trudging along a wall spiked
with jagged shards of broken bottles.