Red flower

I owe this to Giovanni. Was mostly inspired by him: this has some deepness but it's not joyful (surprise, surprise) ;-)



I can't explain the obscure symbol I attach to the red twirling petals (Well, I can, like always could, but, don't have the clarity in my mind to translate it into words right now; not these days), however it exists. It is strongly attached to the topic of the poem. The topic was selected minding Giovanni's deep care about human soul, but the topic is one of my taste and selection. So everything has a working sense, the twirling, the colour, the poem... it is me who can't be clear these days.
I've always been attached to this poem; it has, included around, some of my child visions of sadly joyful attachment to war, during the Malvinas/Falklands conflict. Henry Van Dyke did it perfectly in his quoted poem related to the first world war.

Even in the simplicity of my results, the prompting artworks has been Multiplier and Swirling, by Giovanni Rubaltelli. So thanks.

In the pleasant time of Pentecost,
By the little river Kyll,
I followed the angler's winding path
Or waded the stream at will,
And the friendly fertile German land
Lay round me green and still.

But all day long on the eastern bank
Of the river cool and clear,
Where the curving track of the double rails
Was hardly seen though near,
The endless trains of German troops
Went rolling down to Trier.

They packed the windows with bullet heads
And caps of hodden gray;
They laughed and sang and shouted loud
When the trains were brought to a stay;
They waved their hands and sang again
As they went on their iron way.

No shadow fell on the smiling land,
No cloud arose in the sky;
I could hear the river's quiet tune
When the trains had rattled by;
But my heart sank low with a heavy sense
Of trouble, —I knew not why.

Then came I into a certain field
Where the devil's paint-brush spread
'Mid the gray and green of the rolling hills
A flaring splotch of red,—
An evil omen, a bloody sign,
And a token of many dead.

I saw in a vision the field-gray horde
Break forth at the devil's hour,
And trample the earth into crimson mud
In the rage of the Will to Power, —
All this I dreamed in the valley of Kyll,
At the sign of the blood-red flower.

Henry Van Dyke, "The Red Flower".