Curved swords are dyed
on Maltese crosses.
Jerusalem and St. Anne
mourn the mutilated¹.
We lost Rodas² scream the
headless bodies in the grand harbour.
Better to die than to lose Malta
scream the disembodied heads,
at the porta del soccorso³.
The cannons revenge
those who were guarding St. Elmo.
When the virtues dressed as knights
and St John as Valette⁴.
Do not look for precepts
between the cracked walls.
Do not look for light
among so many stones.
Do not look for rosaries in
fingers full of gunpowder.
Not in the hands of those who
swimming escaped.
You can only enter the order
by the act of God.
To the altar of St. Anne
through the few swords
that defended it⁵.
Let the Virgin protect us.
Let the dead bury
the dead⁶.
Valette screams rejuvenate and ages
between infidel’s attacks on his values.
From Sicily the wind brings
archangels full of grace
and García de Toledo Osorio.
In front of so much nobility
from the province of León and
new blood for the war.
The sails leave, without new lands
to Istanbul.

¹ Great Siege of Malta 1565
² Expulsion of the Sovereign and Military Hospitable Order of St. John of Jerusalem from Rhodes and Malta 1523
³ Fort St. Elmo’s door used to receive reinforcements during the great siege.
⁴ Jean Parisot de la Valette, Grand Master of the Order of Malta during the Great Siege of 1565
⁵ Knights and chaplains gave final battle defending the altar. The relics of St. Anne were in the chapel brought by the Knights of Malta in 1530.
⁶ Luke 9:60

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Text & picture© Guillermo G. Schiava D’Albano – ristretto230@gmail.com 
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Para leerlo en español ->https://ristretto230.com/2018/04/17/las-velas-marcharon/