Watching  Visconti's "Il Gattopardo"

In five minutes we forget Burt Lancaster is speaking Italian

In ten we stop reading the helpful titles

We are sitting beside Prince Salina

He is stroking the head of one of his hunting dogs

His shotgun rests in the crook of an oak

He is explaining why all this must end

How the victory of Garibaldi cannot carve justice

Or permanent revolution out of the corpse

Of Feudalism

Garabaldi, he says, was also a Leopard

And the Leopards are dying

Already the world is passing over,

Perhaps for centuries, to jackals

And the spawn of jackals

m. shepler   6/7/05