Sicily
The cradle of the modern western Europe,
where the sonnet was invented
at the universal court of Frederick the Second
Hohenstaufen in Palermo,
then the centre of the world
and heart of universal culture,
which was outrageously raped
by papacy and its politics
of reaction, greed, suppression
and all opposites to culture and expansion,
the entire royal Norman family of heroes
being categorically persecuted to extinction
for their liberal free-thinking views
and universal tolerance;
you never managed to recover,
blessed island of serenity and beauty,
generosity, divinity and richness of imagination,
from the persecution of invaders,
French and papal tyrants,
so that your renaissance only could survive
through Florence, which made a second effort
and, although succeeding better,
still was also there suppressed by violence
and beaten down for nothing
but that they were right,
which every spirit in existence always was
who just maintained their right for freedom
of integrity and mind and conscience.
Still, Palermo is still there
with the whole island of dynamic splendour
which at any moment may bring forth anew
such champions for humanity and justice
as the Staufer Frederick the Second,
the grandfather of Italy, the diplomatic genius
who was only and unique in conquering Jerusalem
without a drop of blood on either side,
the only politician ever who succeeded
in maintaining peace between the Christians,
Jews and Muslims, for which he was banished,
excommunicated by the Church,
which never could accept a non-dogmatic mind.
The renaissance was thus held up for a few centuries,
but nothing in the long run can resist or stop
the universal human urge of life for freedom.
Poetry by Christian Lanciai
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Written on 2007-10-17 at 14:12
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