Derek Walcott — Time that gnaws at bronze lions and dolphins

Time, that gnaws at bronze lions and dolphins that shrivels fountains, had exhausted him; a cupola in Milan exhaled him like incense, Abruzzi devoured him, Firenze spat him out, Rome chewed his arm and flung it over his shoulder for the rats in the catacombs; Rome took his empty eyes from the sockets of the Colosseum. Italy ate him. Its bats at vespers navigated her columns with an ancient elation, a hand in San Marco’s font aspersed him with foul canal water, then bells tossed their heads like bulls, and their joy rattled the campaniles, as innumerable pigeons settled on the square of his forehead, his kidneys were served in a modest hotel in Pescara, a fish mimicked his skeleton in Salty Amalfi until after a while there was nothing left of him except this: a name cut on a wall that soon from the grime of indifference became indecipherable.