The moon

that passed through Hadrian's eyes,
passed also through the eyes of Boccaccio
and of Charles V, just as it passed through the
murderous eyes of the Conquistadors
and of those who were beheaded, it passed through
the clear glass of the ardent eyes
of lovers and of suicides,
the moon passed through Churchill's eyes
and through Hitler's and through the Jewish eyes
of the extermination camps
as it passed through the eyes of those who
resist in Gaza and through the eyes of the dogs
it passed as it passed through the eyes of Melville
and of Kafka, it passed through the eyes of Di Giovanni,
as it will pass through the eyes of my daughters,
those of my mother, the eyes of my father,
the moon that passes now before my eyes,
may be the only guiding thread
of the human gaze.