Giacomo Leopardi’s triumph of memory Beyond ideas hides a phantom drifting at the hidden horizon, where clouds swim stained with blood as the sun slowly dies in the void of space. From the bluff, I watch light sink to night’s scattered tomb when stillness heartens imagination to lord over fate like a singing owl. The day is fled, the morn’s wings clipped, and only darkness is to come. Like a pearl shining beneath waves, only what passes is real. Desert flower of memory, your shadow outshines the sun, and where blindness reigned eyes see again, and give life to death.…