Selected Poetry of Andrea Zanzotto 9781400871926

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Selected Poetry of Andrea Zanzotto

Andrea Zanzotto was born at Pieve di Soligo (Treviso), October lo, 1921. He has published the following books: Dietro il paesaggio, Mondadori, Milan 1951 Elegia e altri versi, La Meridiana, Milan 1954 Vocativo, Mondadori, Milan 1957 IX Ecloghe, Mondadori, Milan 1962 Sull'Altopiano (prose 1924-54), Neri Pozza, Venice 1964 Mondadori, Milan 1968 Pieve di Soligo 1969 Pasque, Mondadori, Milan 1973 A selection of Zanzotto's poetry from 1938 to 1972 was edited by Stefano Agosti and published by Mondadori in 1973. The Lockert Library of Poetry in Translation For other titles in the Lockert Library see page 345.

Selected Poetry of Andrea Zanzotto EDITED AND TRANSLATED BY

Ruth Feldman and Brian Swann

Princeton University Press

Copyright (C) 1975 by Princeton University Press Published by Princeton University Press, Princeton and Guildford, Surrey All Rights Reserved Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data will be found on the last printed page of this book Publication of this book has been aided by the Louis A. Robb Fund of Princeton University Press This book has been composed in Linotype Granjon Printed in the United States of America by Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey The Lockert Library of Poetry in Translation is supported by a bequest from Charles Lacy Lockert (1888-1974), scholar and translator of Corneille, Racine, and Dante.

Contents

Translators' Introduction Foreword by Glauco Cambon

ix xiii

Part I From Dietro il paesaggio The Motor Burned Spring of Santa Augusta Indications and Moon How Long By Now There Often in the Dawn Via di miseri Distance Balm, Squall Mountain Poem The Jewelled Carriages Atoll Gathering The Houses That Wal\ on the Waters You Exist; It Ignores Me Night of War, with a North Wind How Much of the Night Cry on the La\e Far Off The Waters of Dolle With Sweet Curiosity Slope above Lorna Lorna The Infirm Love of Day There on the Bridge Because We Are Behind the Landscape

3 5 7 9 13 15 17 19 21

23 27 29

31 33

35 37 41 45 47 49 51 55 57 61 63 65 69

Part II From Vocativo Epiphany River at Daybreak^

73 75

If It Were Not Others' and Mine Friday Elegy Experiment Vocative Case Night at Serravalle The Friends Who Have Gone Ahead Where 1 See Behold the Thin Green New Autumns Colloquy The First Landscapes From a New Height

77 79 83 87 91 95 99 101 105 107 109 113 115

Existing Psychically Impossibility of the Word Hill of Janus From the Sky

125 127 133 139

121

Part III From IX Ecloghe A Book of Eclogues Eclogue I Eclogue II Eclogue III Through the New Window Eclogue IV The Oa\ Uprooted by the Wind Reflection-Reflex With That Heart Which Suffices That's How We Are Eclogue V Eclogue VI Eclogue IX Epilogue

147 149 155 161 165 167 171 175 ijg 183 185 191 199 207

Part IV From La The Perfection of the Snow Yes, the Snow Again To the Season Adorations, Requests, Acouophonias

vi

211 215 223 229

To The World In an Idiotic Story of Vampires The Elegy in From "Prophecies or Memories or Bulletin-Boards" III VllI X XI XUl XVI XVIIl

233 235 241 247 247 249 251 253 255 257 263

PartV From Pasque Mysteries of Pedagogy Suhnarcosis Someone There Was Supraexistences Small Dar}{-Lantern Feria Sexta in Parasceve Feria Sexta in Parasceve (variant) Codicil

269 281 283 287 295 299 301 303

305 Afterword by Gino Rizzo

307

Notes

324

vii

Translators' Introduction

A well-known American poet has remarked that he avoided translating until a late date because he feared it would un­ duly influence his own work. He found, however, that he need not have worried; he was able to keep his deeper self distinct from his work as a translator, for translation, he said, draws mainly on hard-earned skill and dexterity with lan­ guage. Whatever truth there may be in this, it seems to us that one chooses to translate a certain poet and not another for emotional reasons. One admires a poet and somewhere along the line wants to possess that poet. Each translation is an act of love, even though it is also a process of criticism. What was it, then, that attracted us to Zanzotto ? Ungaretti was drawn to the young Zanzotto by his "Leopardian mode of feeling the landscape,"1 and Montale admired the older Zanzotto for "the intensity of his lived experience."2 To these, we would add Zanzotto's quietness rooted in a sense of place. Not that Zanzotto's pastoral is unqualified idyll. As Ungaretti noted, Zanzotto's landscape is "a country of idyllic enchantments disfigured by tragedy." Still, although the early sense of something "beyond the landscape" is severely questioned and tested in later books, it never quite disappears, for it is bound up with language and dialect, the articulation of deeply personal and cultural values. Finally, there is the quality of Zanzotto's strangeness and the consequent fascination of what's difficult. Michael Ham­ burger has remarked that Holderlin (an important presence in Zanzotto's work) is not only a difficult poet in himself, but a poet far removed from the main tradition and habits of English poetry.3 The same can be said of Zanzotto, whose 1

L'Approdo Letterario (September, 1954). Corriere della sera (1 June, 1968). 3 Friednch Holderlin (Ann Arbor, 1971), p. ix. 2

"Omega poetry"4 makes great demands and ejects the reader forcibly from his habits. His ambiguity teases, his habits of thought and syntax can lead the reader "thorough bush, thorough brier." The dreamlike preconscious utterances of so much of the metalinguistic later work are vatic and dis­ turbing. Yet Zanzotto is never so far away as to be unreach­ able. His humor anchors him, his involvement in psychic experience. Moreover, his paradoxical escape from time and identity in a strong personal utterance of what Pasolini has called "sublime stylisms"5 intrigues and dazzles us. Zanzotto brings poetry close to essence. He pushes out new frontiers of articulation even while we are aware of the areas he has chosen to conserve. His is the old new voice of genu­ ine originality for, as Montale said, "his metronome is per­ haps the heartbeat." In this translation we have tried to be as faithful to the original as possible, and tried to prevent either of our voices from predominating. In fact, we have found that when two people collaborate, in the give and take toward a final ver­ sion, a tertium quid evolves, a style that belongs to neither but to both. We hope that this dual voice is adequate to con­ vey something of the quality of Zanzotto's unique voice and allows his own distinctive music through. It is a pleasure to thank a number of people for their help and encouragement in the preparation of this manuscript. In particular, we want to thank Glauco Cambon and Gino Rizzo, who gave the translators much time and provided invaluable comment and suggestions. Their essays, two of the first on Zanzotto in English,6 are a fine introduction to the poet. Andrea Zanzotto himself gave valuable assistance, 4 The phrase is from Zanzotto's statement in Giacinto Spagnoletti, ed., Poesia itahana contemporanea (Guanda, 1969). 5Quoted by Stefano Agosti, ed., Andrea Zanzotto Poesie (19381972), published by Mondadori, Milano (1973), p. 32. 6 For a Zanzotto bibliography, see Andrea Zanzotto Poesie, ed. Agosti, 33-35.

face to face, and through the erratic Italian mail. His sug­ gestions were always helpful and illuminating. Thanks are also due to the anonymous reader for Prince­ ton University Press who made so many well-taken sugges­ tions and picked up some errors; to Luigi Ballerini, Luigi Jacchia, Anna Yona; to Marjorie Sherwood of Princeton University Press for her editorial expertise and enthusiasm for the project; to Arnoldo Mondadori Editore, Zanzotto's publishers, for their generosity and cooperation.

Acknowledgments are due to the following journals for publishing some of the poems in this volume: Books (National Book League of Great Britain), Books Abroad, Boundary 2, Contemporary Literature in Translation (Canada), extensions, Granite, Modern Poetry in Translation (Great Britain), Mundus Artium, The Nation, Nimrod, Paintbrush, Stinktree, Texas Quarterly, Vanderbilt Poetry Review.

Xll

Foreword

Take a concentrated sensitivity and cast it into a segment of space-time best defined as "Euganean hills, Venetia, midtwentieth-century"; allow that sensitive man to survive the political and military convulsions that beset his larger habi­ tat; make sure he has a chance to absorb much of the culture (Italian and generally European) available at that inter­ section of geography and history; and watch the literary results. Were these predictable? Up to a point perhaps they were: Andrea Zanzotto inherits the refinements of "her­ metic" poetry, and just before the great divide of World War II he begins to write an idyllic, sophisticated kind of verse, smooth yet crisp, full of classicist attitudes and pas­ toral moods, which will persist, albeit in increasingly tenser form, through the first postwar books like Dietro U paesaggio (Behind the Landscape) of 1951 and Elegia e altri versi (Elegy and Other Verse) of 1954, well into part of Vocativo (Vocative) of 1957. But milieu and heritage can go only so far. The rest is—Ie hasard\ no throw of the dice, of course, will ever abolish chance. History always looks more or less predictable after the fact, and in its macroscopic view not only Zanzotto's literary beginnings, but also his eventual swerve from neoclassical elegance to the jerky, polytonal idiom of his experimental phase, might seem a matter of course, or even a circumstan­ tial adjustment to the changed literary situation in which the iconoclastic avant-garde of Sanguineti and associates made itself un-ignorably felt since the end of the fifties. Zan­ zotto's verbal fireworks do not actually start until La Belta (Beauty) of 1968, well after the Neofuturist clamor of the Novissimi anthology (1961) and of Gruppo 63 (1963). Moreover, his development from elegiac composure to iconoclasm parallels others. Luzi and Sereni, to name two influ-

ential members of the Hermetic generation that presided over Zanzotto's debut, did feel an analogous need to reno­ vate their style at about the same turn of time, by becoming more overtly topical in subject and reference, by adopting a more staccato style, and by assimilating a greater dose of tough, anti-lyrical, or abstract vocabulary. Political critique, and sometimes animus, went with it all. Pasolini's itinerary, if quite divergent on the whole, shows a comparable shift from pastoral lyrism (in the vehicle of the Friuli dialect, clinging to the hills and mountains of that Alpine enclave) to social commentary and political denunciation, in con­ vulsed, multilingual, often montage-like forms. Montale's tone likewise changed considerably after La Bufera e Altro {The Storm and Other Things) of 1956, to judge from Satura and Diario del '7/ (Diary of 1971)—though not in Pasolini's political sense. Upon closer inspection, however, Zanzotto appears to have gone his own way as an experimenter, no matter what stim­ ulation he may have received from the radical examples of the early sixties; he certainly pushed his linguistic disloca­ tions much farther than Luzi or Sereni did. More impor­ tantly, Zanzotto's later phase has not really come as lightning out of the blue; or if as lightning, then it can only have deflagrated from the tensions that had accumulated within his earlier work until reaching the critical point. To locate this critical point in Vocativo means to acknowledge a dia­ lectical continuity in Zanzotto's writing, a continuity trace­ able from the very outset and throughout the conspicuous formal mutations. The thematic nucleus persists: bucolic Pieve di Soligo, among its lovely hills preluding the fairly near Dolomites, the green Euganean sweetness that had enveloped Petrarch's old age six centuries ago. This has been the poet's microcosm from the start, and he has explored its every nook and cranny, has recognized it as his Eden, has found in it both the fascination of Nature's secrecy, "from the sky," and the warmth of a child's society as well as of

XlV

immemorial works and days. It afforded him a private com­ munion in which things came alive and he felt sheltered by them as if by a nest. The color of seasons, the distillations of cosmic time, the speech of water and leaf, the secure inac­ cessibility of rock, the chatter of birds and children: these were the poet's cues. At the same time, he could not nestle forever in the won­ der of phenomena, and in the lyrical tradition—as recent as d'Annunzio, Ungaretti, and Quasimodo, and as remote as Petrarch and Tasso—which resulted in Zanzotto's charac­ teristically monodic, flute-like first manner. If the sky itself was an expansion of his Arcadian nest, from which he avow­ edly drew being and inspiration (as witness "Dal cielo," "From the Sky," in V ocativo), that streaming energy would slowly condense into a consciousness of self as a center of things:

se io tutto avvampo e sono mente, io tuo seno, realta: if all of me blazes and is mind, I your breast, reality: until the globed self—a ball of lightning—could break away and roam about in detachment among the estranged phe­ nomena, waiting for a chance to discharge its energy. This is the suspended condition the poet of Vocativo calls "exist­ ing psychically" ("esistere psichicamente"):

da questo lungo attimo inghiottito da nevi, inghiottito dal vento, da tutto questo che non fu primavera non luglio non autunno

ma solo egro spiraglio ma solo psiche, da tutto questo che non e nulla ed e tutto cio ch'io sono: tale la verita geme a se stessa, si vuole pomo che gonfia ed infradicia.

from this long instant swallowed by snows, swallowed by wind, from all this which was not spring not July not autumn but just sickly glimmer just psyche, from all this which is nothing and is everything that I am: in this way truth groans to itself, wants to be an apple that swells and soaks. There comes the point where the balled-up psyche, having absorbed the universe in itself, yearns to release this energy again, and redescend to the lowest existential denominator, be at one with the elemental processes of corruption and fer­ mentation, from which it will be possible to emerge anew as if by ovulating—into instinct and language: Chiarore acido che tessi i bruciori d'inferno degli atomi e il conato torbido d'alghe e vermi, chiarore-uovo che nel morente muco fai parole e amori. Sour brightness that weaves the stings of hell of atoms and the murky struggle of seaweed and worms,

XVl

egg-gleam that in the dying slime makes loves and words. This marks the persona's estrangement from things and from his own ascertainable self, a weird outcome of concen­ trated awareness. A disintegration has occurred, whether we want to emphasize it by electrical or by biochemical meta­ phors, and chances are that from now on the poet will not be able to speak as his old "I"; he will have become other, an articulate Id. Regression to the egg telescopes disintegration and regen­ eration: we may call it a policy of symbolic survival. As such it provides the key mythic image for Zanzotto's world, recur­ ring to the threshold of explosion in his 1974 book, Pasque (Easters). It also structures the spheric imagery of "Ecloga IV" (from IX Eeloghe, Nine Eclogues, of i960), from the very beginning, where the talk is of "births from a shell,. . . coma, . . . muteness," down to the thematic variations (man as a "phenomenological bubble" among every other incipi­ ent life form in an ambiguous Spring of "cocci and nits") which come to a head in "the extreme eye of Polyphemus," the sum total of irrational life energy. In the pastoral con­ vention of the eclogue, Polyphemus, one of two dramatis personae, rebuffs the addresses of an interlocutor called 'V':

E qui su questo, assestandomi, giuro: io Polifemo sferico monocolo ebbro del vino d'Ismaro primavera, io donde cola, crapula, la vita (oh: vino d'Ismaro; oh: vita; oh: primavera!)

And here taking my stance on this, I swear:

XVU

I Polyphemus, spherical one-eyed being drunk with the Spring wine of Ismarus, I from whom dribbles—debauchery—life (oh: wine of Ismarus; oh: life; oh: Spring!) Triumphantly self-contained, brute existence is Polyphemus, also to be understood as the purely instinctual side of man's psyche. It rejects the approaches of "a,"—of articulate exis­ tence, of man as logos-language. Existence transcends the word even if this nether transcendence has to be acknowl­ edged in words. "Impossibility of the word" was indeed the title of a poem in the collection preceding Nine Eclogues. The ironic dialogue of the Polyphemus eclogue neatly expresses, in baroque-mannerist exuberance, the estrange­ ment between self and reality which already underscored Vocativo, where the development of awareness away from ecstatic communion toward a problematic questioning of reality betokens a crisis in the self, such as to compromise even the once unshaken reliance on language. The poet's animal faith in words and knowledge wavers; access to Be­ ing is called into question. Zanzotto's crisis becomes linguis­ tic, epistemological, and metaphysical at the same time, and his writing operates both to denounce and if possible to countervail that crisis. From Vocativo to Ecloghe to La Belta and Pasque the process accelerates until only a fractionated universe—syntactically, lexically and ontologically—remains. The metaphysical questioning—well reflected in the actual interrogative clauses that punctuate the diction—already goes all the way in "Da un'altezza nuova" ("From a New Height") of Vocativo, where the persona addresses a mythi­ cal entity called "mother" to be understood as nothing less than the matrix of reality:

Madre, donde il mio dirti, perche mi taci come il verde altissimo

il ricchissimo nihil, che incombe e esalta, dove beatificanti fiori e venti gelidi s'aprono dopo il terrore—e tu, azzurro, a me stesso, alio specchio che evolve nel domani, ancora mi conformi?

Mother, whence my speaking to you, why do you keep silent like the high green the rich nihil, that impends, exalts, where beatifying flowers and icy winds open after the terror—and you, sky, do you still adapt me to myself, to the mirror that evolves into tomorrow? As the very title of this crucial collection implies, the poet as sayer must address reality, in the vocative-evocative mood, and that is a confrontation of sorts. The questioning persona senses a weird emptiness, a radiant nothingness at the center of things, and even while acknowledging his origin from that sphinx-like source, he discovers a basic incommensura­ bility between his words and her silence, between language and perception, between the very self and his identity ("a sense that does not move to an image,/ a color detached from an idea,/ an unwitnessed anxiety . . ./ is this the I you gave me, mother, that now/ I scarcely recognize, not word/ not shape not shadow?"). Paradoxically, the sense of reality is reattained through a facing of the elemental void, through a cumulation of deni­ als, a new version of the medieval theologian's via negativa whereby God, the supreme reality, was to be reached by human minds only through the progressive negation of all predicable qualities. But the modern phenomenologist, un­ like the medieval theologian, cannot rest comfortably in that

exceptional assurance; Zanzotto's critical restlessness, the leaven of his transformations, precludes a surrender to mys­ ticism, and will in fact propel the persona of "From a New Height" into the sharpest self-questioning: he then faces the painful possibility that all his lyrical meditations may have been a mere exercise in narcissism, a solipsistic venture, by­ passing the tangible presences, cosmic and human, which alone make up a world. The ordeal proves salutary, and noticing as if for the first time "the warm hand" which "still strokes the fruit," and "child and workman" in the street, with deep life in their eyes, he wonders: Questo fu mio, ne mai seppi, mai vidi? Was this mine and did I never know, never see? From now on the self will repeatedly endeavor to break through its ego-shell; the social and political dimension of Zanzotto's later poetry, as for instance "Misteri della pedagogia" ("Mysteries of Pedagogy"), is to be viewed from this "new height" (and depth) of harrowing perception. A reshuffle of language is one direct consequence; the poet will play with words in dead earnest, to test his one instru­ ment, and the "rhetorical" acrobatics of the Eclogues and even more of La Belta will try to verify the limits of cogni­ tion. "Beauty"—utter emptiness or final plenitude?—is to be attained if at all by "oltranza-oltraggio," by the outrage of exasperation in the game of words. Or it may be "sketched" as if in Zanzotto's own version of Notes Toward a Supreme f iction—Stevens providing a remarkable counterpart to his quest for a valid perception of reality. Humorous manipula­ tion of language also seems a common trait in the author of the Polyphemus eclogue and in the artist of "Connoisseur of Chaos" or "Someone puts a pineapple together." The two poetical phenomenologists appear similarly engaged in stak­ ing rhetorical artifice against the elusive essence of things,

and in this sense Zanzotto's first eclogue reminds me of Auroras of Autumn. The Italian writer's addiction to gram­ matical capers likewise parallels Stevensian tactics, witness "Al mondo" ("To the World") in La Belta: Fa' di (ex-de-ob etc.)-sistere e oltre tutte Ie preposizioni note e ignote. . . . Make sure you (ex-des-res etc.)-ist and beyond all prepositions known and unknown. . . . The comical conclusion of this poem, "Su, miinchhausen" ("Come on, Miinchhausen") points to the miracle the poet has been aiming for: the qualitative leap from language to reality, since the world can only spring up from his rhetori­ cal incantations as a kind of unguaranteed magical feat. Where Zanzotto differs from Stevens is in the quality of his social comment (see a La Belta piece which equates capi­ talism with vampirism) as well as in the further range lately attained by his linguistic experimentation. But they do share enough common ground (no matter of "influence"!) to warrant comparison of their respective ways to combine and alternate the celebrative, the playful, and the cerebral tone. Zanzotto's black humor, to be sure, goes to an extreme sel­ dom touched by the thoughtful clown of Man with a Blue Guitar. Pieve di Soligo, the Euganean village, more than matches what agrarian Pennsylvania and green Connecticut were to Stevens; Zanzotto can also write ferociously about Pieve in a mock-elegiac tone, and assail the real estate devel­ opers coming in for the ecological rape. That is in Pasque, the last volume to date. Easter, the feast of the egg, becomes the end and the beginning of all, the consummation of the renewal process in all reality. Language is centrifugally shat­ tered, words punningly proliferate at every turn, in a kind of barely controlled chaos. The impishness is also a rage. Among the poems of the seventies, one will hardly forget

XXl

the ironic self-portrait of the author as teacher in "Mysteries of Pedagogy," which tackles the problem of cultural com­ munication at a culturally deprived level. Monody has made room for polytonalism, elegy for satire; classicism has been replaced by "glossolalia," a Babelic verve that is apt to incor­ porate dialect as well as functional or dislocated quotations from Heidegger, Holderlin, and Dante along with ominous statements by nuclear strategist Herman Kahn and onomato­ poeic babblings of baby-talk. The broken rhythms now superseding the earlier long phrases sinuously draped in metered verse make one think of Pound and Olson rather than of Stevens; they still yearn to convey "a new knowl­ edge of reality." And readers unfamiliar with Italian will find that something like that—a new knowledge of the real­ ity that poetry is—comes to them from the careful transla­ tions we owe to the exacting poetical ears of Ruth Feldman and Brian Swann. They remind us that to translate is an act essentially akin to Zanzotto's conception of the poetic pro­ cess—the facing of an incommensurability and the Miinchhausen-like reward of absurd, undefeated fidelity. Glauco Cambon Storrs, Connecticut Summer 1974

Part I

From Dietro il paesaggio (1940-1948)

Arse il motore

Arse il motore a lungo sulla via il suo sangue selvaggio ed atterri fanciulli. Or basso trema all'agonia del fiume verso i moli ed i mari. Assetato di polvere e di fiamma aspro cavallo s'impenno nella sera; a insegne false, a svolte di paesi giacque e tento Ie crepe dell'abisso. Figura non creduta di stagioni di creta, di neri tuoni precoci, di tramonti penetrati per fessure in case e stanze col vento che impaura, aspettai solo nella lunga sosta; finestre e piazze invisibili sostenni; acuti ghiacci avvizziti di febbre alghe e fontane con me discesero nel fondo del mio viaggio: e clessidre e quadranti mi esaltarono l'abbandono del mondo nei suoi ponti nei monti devastati nei Iumi dei confini. O ruote e carri alti come Iuna Iuna argento di sotterranei ceselli voci oscure come Ie mie ceneri e strade ch'io vidi precipizi, viaggiai solo in un pugno, in un seme di morte, colpito da un dio.

The Motor Burned

The motor burned its wild blood for a long time on the road and terrified children. Low now it trembles at the agony of the river toward wharfs and seas. Thirsty for dust and flame harsh horse it reared in the evening; at false signboards, at the crossroads of villages it stopped and tried the fissures of the abyss. Unbelieved figure of seasons of chalk, of black precocious thunders, of twilights penetrating houses through cracks and rooms with a frightening wind, I waited alone in the long pause; windows and invisible piazzas I withstood; sharp ice withered by fever seaweed and fountains descended "with me to the bottom of my journey: hour-glasses and quadrants exalted for me the abandonment of the world in its bridges in devastated mountains in the lights of boundaries. Oh wheels and carts high as the moon moon silver of subterranean chisels voices dim as my ashes and streets I saw as precipices, I travelled alone in a fist, in a seed of death, struck by a god.

Primavera di Santa Augusta

Alia pioggia dei monti, dei castelli, Ie bandiere cadono in sfacelo; leggero come scheletro m'avventuro in questo giorno che selvoso si versa sul mondo. Dietro cieche evasioni di ghiacci e i filtri densi delle paludi, nell'azzurro defunto delle valanghe arrestate dal tuo silenzio arrestate agl'inizi del mio terrore, vacillano Ie scale deU'inverno; per un'altra fronte della pioggia primavera dolce tuona sui monti La tua vicenda avvampa ancora, discendi in tumulto dalle madide chiome dei paesi coi torrenti del cielo e delle strade, e snudi abissi sotto Ie mura e sotto i treni immoti davanti alia sera. Le voci della vera eta chiara ti fanno ma gli occhi restano spenti su questa terra che di te s'estenua e dal tuo volto vinto da morte il mio conosco.

Spring of Santa Augusta

At the rain of mountains, of castles flags fall to ruin; light as a skeleton I set forth in this wooded day that spills onto the world. Behind blind flights of ice and the thick filters of marshes, in the dead blue of avalanches arrested by your silence arrested at the outsets of my terror, the stairs of winter waver; through another brow of the rain sweet spring thunders on the mountains. Your story still burns, you descend in turmoil from the soaked foliage of villages with the torrents of sky and road, abysses bared under walls and beneath trains motionless before evening. Voices of the real age make you clear but the eyes remain extinguished on this earth that is weary of you and from your death-defeated face I know my own.

Indizi e luna

La stella della primavera il dolce succo trae negli alberi giovani. La verde sera al suo specchio s'adorna, ha grandi insegne ormai la citta. Cieli di giardino sorgete ancora dai vostri spazi: quell a ch'era bambina e soreHa dalla sua cas a comprende e vede l'antico gelD dei monti, si stringe al petto il cuore esile come rosa. Dai portici, mercati effondono troppo colmi non colta e non venduta la messe del loro bene, indizi angosciosi di festa giacciono agli angoli delle piazze. Negli orti e nelle serre piu lontane si sfogliano e si smarriscono Ie acque e la madre luna. Gli abitanti camminano abbagliati dal sonno.

6

Indications and Moon

The star of spring draws the sweet sap into the young trees. Green evening adorns itself at its mirror, by now the city shows great signs. Garden skies you still rise from your spaces: she who was child and sister from her house understands and sees the mountains' ancient ice, hugs to her breast the heart rose-frail. From porticoes, teeming markets spill the harvest of their goods uncultivated and unsold, sorry signs of holiday lie in the corners of piazzas. In kitchen-gardens and the farthest hothouses waters and the mother moon shed leaves and go astray. The inhabitants walk dazzled by sleep.

Quanto a lungo

Quanto a lungo tra il grano e tra il vento di quelle soffitte piu alte, estese che il cielo, quanto a lungo vi ho lasciate mie scritture, miei rischi appassiti. Con I'angelo e con la chimera con Fantico strumento col diario e col dramma che giocano le notti a vicenda col sole vi ho lasciate salvaste dalle ustioni della luce il mio tetto incerto i comignoli disorientati le terrazze ove cammina impazzita la grandine: voi, ombra unica neH'inverno, ombra tra i demoni del ghiaccio. Tarme e farfalle dannose topi e talpe scendendo al letargo vi appresero e vi affinarono, su voi sagittario e capricorno inclinarono le fredde lance e I'acquario tempero nei suoi silenzi nelle sue trasparenze un anno stillante di sangue, una mia perdita inesplicabile. Gia per voi con tinte sublimi di fresche antenne e tetti s'alzano intorno i giorni nuovi, gia alcuno s'alza e scuote

8

How hong

How long between the grain and the wind of those garrets higher, more spun out than the sky, how long I have left you my writings, my withered risks. With angel and chimera with ancient instrument, with the diary and the drama the nights play by turns with the sun. I left you up there to save from the cauterizing light my uncertain roof the disoriented gables, terraces where the crazed hail walks: you, only shadow in winter, shadow among the ice-demons. Moths and noxious butterflies rats and moles descending to hibernate taught and refined you, Sagittarius and Capricorn slanted cold lances at you and Aquarius tempered in its silences in its transparencies a year dripping with blood, an inexplicable loss of mine. Already for you with sublime tints of fresh antennas and roofs the new days ascend all around, already someone rises and shakes

le muffe e le nevi dai mari; e se a voi salgo per cornici e corde verso il prisma che vi discerne verso I'aurora che v'ospita, il mio cuore trafitto dal futuro non cura i lampi e le catene che ancora premono ai confini.

10

the mould and snow from the seas; and if I climb to you by ledges and ropes toward the prism that outlines you toward dawn that shelters you, my heart pierced by the future ignores lightning-flashes and the chains that still weigh down the borders.

Ormai

Ormai la primula e il calore ai piedi e il verde acume del mondo I tappeti scoperti Ie logge vibrate dal vento ed il sole tranquillo baco di spinosi boschi; il mio male lontano, la sete distinta come un'altra vita nel petto Qui non resta che cingersi intorno il qui volgere Ie spalle.

By Now

By now the primrose and the warmth at one's feet and the green insight of the world Uncovered carpets the loggias shaken by wind and sun quiet larva of thorny woods; my distant pain, thirst distinct as another life in the breast Here all that's left is to lock the landscape around the self to turn one's back.

La sovente nell'alba

La sovente nell'alba dall'inferno mi destava il rombo lieve e il tremito degli azzurri vulcani. Tra i monti specchi eccelsi del primordio impigliava Ie gracili corna il cervo nato dalla neve; pullulavi alle finestre lava di primavera, vivente a me scendevi tra Ie spire degli evi deformi. 0 golfo della terra a me noto per sempre, dalle cui pieghe antiche spogli d'ombre balzano eventi; freddo rifugio cui gl'insoliti fiumi cingono il grembo, 1 tuoi sparsi elementi sono la mia solitaria gloria, i raggi del tuo sole non maturano che neve. Ma ancora negli abissi tuoi cercarti m'e caro, in ogni tua forma giaccio sepolto, del mio sangue ogni tua fonte esulta. Tu clemente ricorderai Ie immagini della mia vita.

There Often in the Dawn

There often in the dawn the faint rumble and quake of blue volcanos woke me from hell. Among the mountains high primordial mirrors the deer born of snow tangled his frail antlers; spring's lava you swarmed against the windows, living, you descended to me among the coils of disfigured ages. Oh gulf of earth forever known to me, from whose ancient folds events spring naked of shadows; cold refuge whose womb the unaccustomed rivers gird, your scattered elements are my solitary glory, your sun's rays ripen nothing but snow. But I still love to search for you in your abysses, I lie buried in your every form, every spring-head of yours exults in my blood. Benign, you will remember my life's images.

Via di miseri

Segnata di cifre crudeli all'alto ascendi via di miseri, nell'alto i peschi di rosa si chinano al vento che qui non giunge. Non turbato, alle soglie della mia terra estinta siedo, gia m'incatena il sonno: io vedo i peschi rosei chinati nel vento. L'erba all'amore mio piu non s'attarda da molti anni tace la strada, duro ghiaccio si e fatto il giorno qui sui gradini per sempre. Acerba primavera stringe i miei denti mi sanguina da ingiuste piaghe, Ie mie ciglia di sepolto pensano l'inutilmente larga strada. La sugli orti lontani e sul flume di neve, piove da molti anni. Nell'alto delle chine sbocciarono i rosei peschi dal vento.

Via di Miseri

Marked by cruel numbers you climb toward the summit, Via di Miseri, on top pink peach-trees bend at the wind that does not reach here. Undisturbed, I sit on the thresholds of my dead earth, already sleep shackles me: I see the pink peach-trees bent in the wind. The grass no longer delays at my love the street has been silent for many years, day has turned to hard ice here on the steps forever. Harsh spring sets my teeth on edge bleeds me from unjust wounds, my eyelashes of a buried man conceive the street needlessly wide. There on distant kitchen gardens and on the snowy river, it has been raining for years. On top of the slopes the rosy peach-trees bloomed from the wind.

Distanza

Or che mi cinge tutta la tua distanza sto inerme dentro un'unica sera Odora il miele sulla mensa e il tuono e nella valle, molto afianno tra l'uno e l'altro Io sono spazio frequentato dal tuo sole deserto, vieni a chiedermi dove gridami solitudine E questo azzurro guasto di sgomenti e di Iuci di monti per sempre m'ha appreso a memoria.

Distance

Now that all your distance surrounds me I stand unarmed inside a lone evening The honey is fragrant on the table and there is thunder in the valley, much anxiety between the one and the other I am frequented space deserted by your sun. Come. Ask me where shout solitude at me And this sky tainted with dismay with mountain lights has learned me by heart forever.

Balsamo, bufera

In questa notte che e preda del vento ho presagio della Iuna e della mia citta nuda e troppo bianca su cui la Iuna sta fonte del vuoto; ho dolore dei fiumi qui traboccati dal deserto; delle strade dove afiondano case e montagne, dei vivi che il balsamo lunare ha fatto oscuri e freddi bambini con angosce di cera; ho dolore di tanta vastita circondata da ombre remote di tuoni e dell'incomprensibile estate chiusa in serre di pioggia: che e tutta una lunga notte una terra di sudori una Iuna profonda nel seno minerale degli abissi. O fortunosa Iuna non si sveglieranno mai piu per te i lampi sul mio passato e la tua bufera, che prossima ti dice e che sostiene il mio sguardo e la mia morte vagabonda, ha un verde di sauro.

Balm, Squall

In this night which is the wind's prey I have presage of the moon and of my city naked and too white above which the moon stands, fountain of emptiness; I grieve for the rivers debouched here from the desert; for the streets where houses and mountains founder, for the living whom lunar balm with waxen anguish has made into dark cold children; I grieve at so much vastness surrounded by distant shadows of thunder, at the incomprehensible summer shut into greenhouses of rain; for it is all one long night one sweating earth one deep moon in the mineral breast of abysses. Storm-tossed moon never again will flashes wake for you on my past and your squall, that speaks nearby to you and that sustains my glance and my vagrant death, is saurian green.

Montana

I Non risuona la voce non ritorna dalle zone precluse dal fulgore della morte, oltre questa ebrieta di nevi e d'acque non e dato a me, se mi creasti, discendere La neve consuma la gola, la neve da forza alia pietra, ed il corpo vacuo dell'acqua mi umilia movendo oltre ogni potere E s'io bevessi per I'ultima volta e s'io cercassi dove cerca il monte da te non tornerei sarei la fronte che ignora, il passo che scade e finisce. II

Da se mi esclude il freddo paradiso dei tuoi monti trovati dal sole e quel sole non turba la sera che a me dara la mia piu giusta pace Qui lo sciame animoso delle piogge s'abbatte alle remote disarmonie delle pianure al congedo immutato dei prati e mi perde nel pianto E di la tanto mi tace dopo i prati e i freddi meli la fredda spera del tuo paradiso No, tornero nell'erba tua ti vedro col tuo nome di natura. 22

Mountain Poem

ι The voice does not resound does not return from places debarred by death's splendor, beyond this delirium of snows and waters it is not given to me, if thus you created me, to descend Snow consumes the throat, lends the stone strength, and the empty body of water humbles me moving beyond every power And if I drank for the last time and if I searched where the mountain searches I would not come back to you I would be the unknowing forehead, the footstep that fades and ends. II The cold paradise of your mountains found by the sun bars me from itself and that sun does not disturb the evening which will give me the peace I so deserve Here the bold rain-swarm beats down on the far discords of plains to the unchanged leaving of meadows and loses me in its lament And from there so much is silent to me beyond the fields and the cold apple-trees the cold sphere of your paradise No, I will return into your grass I will see you with your natural name.

Felice fosti, ti piacque la Iuna a se ti strinse in coro il verde delle valli fosti cara agli spazi del bosco Non esiste quella sera debole che con miti bandiere ti accolse tra i gerani e ti ofiri silenzi di fanciulli non e pronta la Iuna sui cortili dolci di legno e nebbie non esiste quel fiume laggiu piu profondo che i cimiteri e perche forse e primavera la tomba tua m'ha disertato. IV

Perche io pianga e vasta la piazza e Ie vie sono sterili; e la tua terra accusa nel meriggio del giorno antico con alte campane il proprio midollo di tenebre Delia triste mattina questo fiore e rimasto nella squarciata prigione delle piogge rosso al balcone selvoso; un sole acquatico se ne allegra in disparte in segreto ed il fiume che chiama laggiu tanto inutile pianto e splende rapido O terra invano medicata da tutto il verde che promettevi negando Ie tue sere; sere palpebre oppresse dal fango dei cieli.

You were happy, the moon pleased you the valleys' green clasped you to itself in chorus you were dear to the woods' spaces The dim evening does not exist that welcomed you with gentle banners among geraniums and offered you silences of children the moon is not ready over the courtyards mild with wood and mists that river down below deeper than cemeteries does not exist and perhaps because it is spring your grave has abandoned me. IV

The piazza is vast to make me weep and the streets are sterile; your land in the noon of the ancient day indicts with high bells the very marrow of the dark This flower has remained from the sad morning in the rains' torn prison red on the wooded terrace an aquatic sun rejoices at it apart in secret and the river that calls below is so much useless grief and shines, swift Oh land ministered to in vain by all the green that you promised denying your evenings; evenings eyelids oppressed by the skies' mud.

Le carrozze gemmate

Le carrozze gemmate disperatamente alle chine partono, cariche di rovina; sotto il peso dei tuoni i palazzi stentando si raccolgono e i convogli agitando i Ioro anelli marciti s'insinuano nel fango della terra. E tutto e invaso dal passato dalla luce del tossico e dell'incenso; i paramenti di cemento degli acquedotti scemano colpevoli verso fontane e croci, sorge il rischio dei ponti e tutte Ie statue si liberano tutte Ie statue legate nei fondi lontanissimi Attraverso la festa involuta nel vento si fusero i doni sui banchi in fila, alio schiudersi d'imprevedute piogge sulle scarne membra dei monti; dai vortici di sasso del tramonto Ie dolci labbra Ie fanciulle mostrano perdute nel martirio. Nude spire di strade s'attorcigliano alle esauste linee del giorno gli ossuti parapetti attendono il trionfo dei torrenti.

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The Jewelled Carriages

The jewelled carriages depart tilting madly, loaded with ruin; under the thunder's weight the palaces strain to gather themselves and the convoys shaking their rotting rings creep into the earth's mud. Everything is invaded by the past by the light of the toxic and of incense; the cement vestments of the aqueducts decline guiltily toward fountains and crosses, the bridges' risk rises and all the statues free themselves all the statues bound in the most distant depths Through the festival wrapped in wind the gifts dissolved on lined-up benches, at the unleashing of unforeseen rains on the fleshless limbs of mountains; from the twilight's vortices of stone the young girls show soft lips lost in martyrdom. Naked coils of streets wind to the exhausted lines of day the bony parapets await the torrents' triumphs.

Atollo

Un sole che con oziosi giri sedusse e divoro Tombra del mondo e crebbe sui giorni e sui mesi gia stringe il muro ed il cortile scruta le differenze d'ago della sabbia dei piccoli castelli e brilla da mille bandiere da scudi e da porte dagli angoli dei morti. Tra quei precari monumenti, io la vi collocai, fragili Italie i cui minuti segmenti avido sale stinse, la brace s'indovina dell'insetto e del libro, la tra giochi vuoti e pericoli al silenzio si appoggiano le clausole della mia memoria infelice e monti decrepiti affidano alia sabbia insensibili sfaceli, la sabbia senza parsimonia colma i volti e i sorrisi spegne I'oro dei suoni. Gia il sole penetra per le cieche gallerie delle finestre sugge e scinde gli ultimi legami della mia sostanza.

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Atoll

A sun that with lazy turnings seduced and devoured the world's shadow and waxed above the days and months already binds courtyard and wall watches the needle-fine differences of the sand of small castles and shines from a thousand flags from shields and doors from the corners of the dead. Among those precarious monuments I set you there, fragile Italies whose tiny segments greedy salt faded. One divines embers of insect and book, there among empty games and dangers the clauses of my unhappy memory lean against silence and worn mountains entrust insensible ruins to the sand; the unparsimonious sand fills faces and smiles snuffs the gold of sounds. Already sun pierces through blind arcades of windows absorbs and splits the last ties of my substance.

Adunata

Indugia ancora la parvenza dei soldati selvaggi sulle porte, ed ostili insegne sui fortilizi alza la sera, chiama piazze a raccolta. Un arso astro distrusse questa terra profonda in pozzi e tane s'avventa rombra dell'estate da vicoli e da altane e dai rotti teatri. Nel disegno dei pavimenti nelle crepe delle caserme nelle clausure delle palestre un morbo splende, il vetro seme del gelo traligna, il vino e I'oro sui deschi appassisce. Ma, gloria avara del mondo, d'altre stagioni memoria deforme, resta la selva.

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Gathering

The apparition of the fierce soldiers still lingers on the doors, and evening hoists hostile banners over fortresses, summons piazzas to the assembly. A burnt star destroyed this earth deep in wells and lairs the shadow of summer hurls itself from lanes, from belvederes and from broken theatres. In the design of pavements in the cracks of barracks in the seclusion of gymnasiums a contagion shines, the glass seed of the frost degenerates, wine and gold wither on tables. But, mean glory of the world, misshapen memory of other seasons, the woods remain.

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Le case che camminano sulle acque

Le case che camminano sulle acque e che vogliono dirmi benvenuto, se scendo dalla sera, le case che camminano sulle acque: o tu che accetti la stretta dolce dei canali e che ti lasci guardare in tutte le tue nude grazie fin che il mio pianto ti veli fin che I'amor mio non ti renda primavera delle mie parole Mi dicevano ieri che c'era posto anche per me nella barca dal piu bel tragitto nel fiume dal piu bel mantello; ch'ero guarito coi capelli a bosco d'un cielo azzurro e prossimo, con le correnti intrecciate alle dita; mi dicevano ieri che dalla morte mi rieducavi Le case che mi chiamano dalle acque: forse un invito mi sara qui concesso, e forse il sonno; vedro tutta la mia fiducia tutto lo spazio colmarsi di rive, di fiumi come celeri conquiste, d'acqua immenso vigore e moto adulto Sono andato laggiu col fiume, in un momento di noia le barche le reti si sono lasciate toccare, ho toccato riva con la mano.

The Houses That Wal\ on the Waters

The houses that walk on the waters and want to welcome me if I go down from evening, the houses that walk on the waters: you, who accept the canals' gentle clasp and let yourself be seen in all your naked grace until my tears veil you until my love transforms you to the springtime of my words They told me yesterday that there was also room for me in the boat on the loveliest crossing on the river with the loveliest cloak; that I was healed, my hair fine branches merged with a close blue sky, with currents entwined in my fingers; they told me yesterday you were re-educating me from death The houses that call to me from the waters: perhaps an invitation will be granted to me here, perhaps sleep; I will see all my faith the whole expanse fill with shores, with rivers like swift conquests, immense vigor and full-grown movement of water I went down there with the river, in a moment of boredom the boats the nets let themselves be touched, I touched the shore with my hand.

Tu set, mi trascura

Tu sei: mi trascura e tutto brividi mi lascia la stagione; fragole a boschi e pomi a perdizione nelle miriadi delle piogge La pura estate consumata dai grandi venti illuminata dall'amore e tutta un'altra fioritura ehe non significa e non pesa e questo pomeriggio improvvisato perche da te mi possa congedare Con te verde ora di caligini e raggi mi salvi, io vedo ancora tra accecanti ricchezze.

You Exist; It Ignores Me

You exist: the season ignores me, leaves me all shivers; endless strawberries in the woods and apples in the countless rains Pure summer consumed by strong winds lit by love and quite another flowering that means nothing, weighs nothing, and this impromptu afternoon so I may take leave of you With you green now with fogs and light-shafts you save me, I see again among blinding riches.

Notte di guerra, a tramontana

La notte si ridotta e acuminata in ogni sua lancia m a n e l l a luna che dalla luce ha diviso le parti perdute del mondo e ha lasciato I'argento curvo e il diamante poroso alia mano dei morti alle dubbie vie delle lumache Lenta inclina i vertici dello spazio sparge e nutre i tentativi del verde inacerbisce le vendemmie d'ogni prato s'acceca nelle spine infime dell'acqua della valle; le lumache petali madidi con cammini di costellazione vanno a lambire quanto e rovescio quanto si umilia ed ha timore II raccolto ormai piu non sara quel sole che custodira domani I'avvento di te dai tesori delle rose invernali ma lascer senza voce I'azzurro di corallo dei monti solitudini amorose; nelle lapidi negl'inciampi avversi cadr prima della luna, sotto il pavimento freddo dell'occidente.

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Night of War, with a North Wind

Night is diminished and all its lances honed but more especially in the moon that has already divided the lost fragments of the world from light and left the curved silver and porous diamond on the hand of the dead on the dubious tracks of snails Slowly it bends the zeniths of space scatters and nourishes tentatives of green turns the harvest of every field bitter, blinds itself on the low thorns of the valley-water; the snails moist petals with starred paths go gliding over whatever is overturned is humbled and afraid From now on the harvest will no longer be that sun which tomorrow will guard your coming from the treasures of winter roses but will leave voiceless the blue coral of the mountains' amorous solitudes; it will fall among stone markers, hostile snags, before the moon, under the cold floor of the west.

L'erba mette becco e penne e gli artifici del fosforo sorprendono l'ombra dentuta del vento che ha scavato la luna.

38

The grass grows beak and feathers, and the tricks of phosphorus startle the toothed shadow of the wind which has hollowed out the moon above.

Quanta notte

Quanto ho sofierto questa notte vedendoti, vedendomi, e tante e Ie tue cose tradite dal sonno finite dalla tempesta antica dalle ombre rovinose delle scale dei quadri e delle lampade. Non ho voluto la notte non sono uscito ad aspettare i prati ospiti del vento e i convogli ventosi, i Iumi dove per te sola muori; ho chiuso mura e porte per allontanare i fiori grilli delle proprie tinte, mi sono accorto di tutte Ie vette riflesse alle mie spalle dalla grazia e la notte m'ha ricondotto intorno i valichi e Ie frane. Ho camminato ascendendo, sui tesori guasti dell'erba e della pioggia, nevi ho raggiunto sotto anditi e volte in questo luogo di legno odoroso ed oscuro dove Ie nevi luminosamente ininterrottamente tremano e i sensi languono feriti dove Ie pietre levigano ai fianchi i cedimenti e gli scoscendimenti ch'erano l'ombra tua; e il sole mi ha ricordato mi ha distinto da me stesso e dal mondo.

How Much of the Night

How I suffered tonight seeing you, seeing me, and so many things, your things betrayed by sleep finished by the old storm by the ruinous shadows of stairs of paintings and of lamps. I did not wish for night I did not go out to wait for the meadows hosts of the wind and windy convoys, the lights where you die for yourself alone; I closed walls and doors to keep away the correctly colored flowers crickets, I was aware of all the peaks reflected behind my back by grace, and night has led me again around passes and landslides. I climbed on the spoiled treasures of grass and rain, I reached snows under passageways and vaults in this place of wood fragrant and dark where snows tremble luminous without interruption and the senses droop wounded where cave-ins and rockfalls polish on their flanks the stones that were your shadow; and the sun has remembered me has distinguished me from myself and from the world.

Non ho temuto tutte Ie montagne discese nel vuoto lasciato dal sole e una morta meravigliosa e dolce con Ie membra volgenti alia solitudine con Io sguardo vietato al proprio giaciglio, ha dormito tutto il mio sgomento e il mio nuovo martirio. La febbre ha vuotato Ie mie ossa d'uccello un sonno sublime distrusse il mio volto un'ala ha fatto grande nido piumoso nido della mia fronte. Ho pianto tutto quanto il mio volto tutta la notte ho pianto nella fontana. La notte e colata nella fontana cosi lentamente che per lei ho perduto la luna.

I did not fear all the mountains fallen into the void left by the sun and a dead woman wonderful and sweet with limbs turning toward solitude with a forbidden glance at her own couch, has put to sleep all my dismay and my new martyrdom. Fever has emptied my bird-bones a sublime sleep destroyed my face a wing has made a large nest a feathery nest of my forehead. I have wept away my whole face all night I wept into the fountain. Night has filtered into the fountain so slowly that for it I have lost the moon.

Grido sul Iago

Il grido d'uccello dell'inverno arresto i quadranti degli orologi, carri e macchine resero fango la via. Costruzioni ed asili della ρϊύ sensibile rovina si spalancano al Iago gelato di sassi, intorno al monte s'interrano bovi motori e ruote, il duro avello si scava la sera. Chiamate all'altra riva in altro tempo volarono lungi Ie barche, sui tavoli i bicchieri rovesciati versano cera, precipita la scala verso inferni di neve. Palafitte avvizziscono al divieto fosco dell'oriente, la terra ofTesa e chiusa tra i padiglioni colmi della festa e il passo di metallo dei portici e degli archi che sprofondano il lago. Tra Ie sfatte reti del vento moltitudini estreme si disperdono in luci.

Cry on the La\e

The cry of the winter bird stopped the clock-faces, carts and cars turned the road to mud. Buildings and shelters of the most sentient ruin yawn to the frozen lake of stones around the mountain oxen engines and wheels clog with earth, evening digs itself a hard grave. Summoned to the other shore in another time the boats flew far away; on tables overturned glasses spill wax, stairs plunge toward hells of snow. Pile-dwellings fade at the dark prohibition of the east, the injured earth is locked between pavilions full of the holiday and the metal footstep of porticoes and arches that submerge the lake. In the wind's worn nets last multitudes scatter in lights.

Al di la

Al di Hl tu falci e componi Ie gentili somiglianze dei fiori al di la non sazia mai la tua fame di bambina ed hai la mela e il ghiaccio vegetale, Ia ti punge al pol so la tua bus sola per indicarti la stella ch' il tuo vero gemello; e il tuo dubbio s'allunga di una sillaba perche tu possa conoscere colli piccoli come noci per i tuoi denti giocosi, soli come voli di vespe e parole che suonano come monete; e tu prepari al vento l' ora delle pili grandi altezze delle pili vivide seminagioni delle sue visite che innamorano

e

e

E per te che la gioia dei paesi liberamente va imitando i tuoi semplici atti; e per te questa terra non e che un mite minuto satellite che ben sa dove si dirige.

Far Οβ

Far of? you scythe and arrange the pleasant likenesses of flowers far off your child's hunger is never sated you have the apple and vegetable ice, there your compass pricks your wrist to point out the star that's your true twin; and your doubt lengthens by a syllable so you may know hills small as walnuts for your playful teeth, lonely as wasp flights and words clinking like coins; in the wind you prepare the time of greatest heights of most vivid sowings of its fascinating visits It is for you the joy of villages freely imitates your simple acts; for you this earth is just a gentle tiny satellite that knows very well where it is going.

L'acqua di Dolle

Ora viene a consolarmi con una lunga visita l'acqua di Dolle che port dieci colline al paese sfuggi tra le api e i lor castelli di acume tocco le forme sensitive di un'isola di pura sabbia, ora viene quest'acqua ch'io sospiro perch traspare dalle tue membra gemelle; perche a lungo indugio nello scrigno d'ombra dove il £co s'affaccia guardiano e il sole non fa piu musco ne felce, dove sono aperte le scene da festa del cielo. Acqua ignara della creta che gia fuoresce dai suoi viluppi, fiera del rosso momentaneo dei fiori celebrati da quest'ora, tu vai dovunque lambendo e tentando le piu ritrose solitudini: lasciatemela mia, per la mia lampadina di chiocciola per I'orto di che il nano e mezzadro, lei dal fittissimo alfabeto lei che ha i messaggi di nobili invasioni degli astri che ritornano dalle alpi ormai pingui d'argento, lei che va promettendo una notte fresca come un domani. 48

The Water of Dolle

Now to console me with a long visit comes the water of Dolle that brought ten hills to the town fled among bees and their keen castles touched the sensitive shapes of an island of pure sand, now comes this water I long for because it shines through your twin limbs; because it lingered a long time in the shadowed coffer where the fig-tree stands guard and the sun no longer makes moss or fern, where the sky's festive scenes are already open. Water ignorant of clay that already flows from its tangles, proud of the momentary red of flowers celebrated by this hour, you go lightly touching and probing the shyest solitudes: let it stay mine, for my snail's lamp for the garden the dwarf sharecrops, water from the thickest alphabet water with its messages of noble invasions of stars returning from alps now heavy with silver, water promising a night cool as a tomorrow.

Con dolce curiosita

Con dolce curiosita colli cresciuti qui dintorno e voi, spazi accaldati: il segreto di Dolle che ieri assorbi tante piccole genti stanche delle proprie ricchezze non era che il mulino ridente e servito dalle ombre; era il mulino che fa trasalire Ie frescure affiorate per i lor cauti pori, il mulino tra la salvia il mulino che non fa ρΐύ rumore che foglia Singhiozzava per esso il mio polso con risentimenti di baco quando mi si abbassavano Ie palpebre come ariste su un'indolenza lucente di paglia Tra i dormienti ed i vivi il silenzio posa su un fianco, a pochi passi dalla pioggia di minuto in minuto quella messe riprende salute e tu vergine vi ti dicevi per aver tanto atteso, ed eri d'una famiglia di selvatiche piogge e foglie ed eri schiava d'una lettera in arrivo

With Sweet Curiosity

With sweet curiosity hills that have grown around here and you, hot spaces: the secret of Dolle which yesterday absorbed so many small peoples tired of their own riches was nothing but the mill merry and served by shadows; it was the mill that startles the coolness emerging from their wary pores, the mill among the sage the mill making no more noise than a leaf My pulse throbbed for it with a silkworm's resentments when my eyelids drooped like awns over a shining indolence of straw Between the sleeping and the living silence rests on its side, a few steps from the rain from instant to instant that harvest recaptures health and you called yourself virgin there for having waited so long, you came of a family of wild rains and leaves you were the slave of an awaited letter

104 Forse e tempo di metter gli occhiali per diventar familiari con le distanze e i puntigli del vetro, forse chi computa ha gia un errore in eccesso per il meriggio celeste fiammifero per la mano golosa che tocca i larghi petali del miele Ecco I'acqua risolta nei suoi sorsi e il mulino nelle sue molle d'orologio e gli uomini della calura nei lor modesti vizi d'orecchio e di gola; di me si giova la luce per vedere il fico va sillabando dolcezza il carbone sotterra allarga le sue piume di struzzo; conduciamo la ghiaia a here a piccoli sorsi, dissetiamoci alia notte, inventiamo una fanciulla educabile al vento alia frescura, dissetiamoci all'ombra di giglio della sua mente.

Perhaps it's time to put on spectacles to get acquainted with distances and the punctiliousness of glass, perhaps one who calculates has already erred by excess for the afternoon, blue match, for the greedy hand that touches the honey's broad petals Here is the water dissolved in its drops and the mill in its watch-springs and the men from the heat with their modest vices of ear and gullet; light uses me to see the fig-tree spells out sweetness underground the coal spreads its ostrich-plumes; let's lead the gravel to drink in little sips, let's slake our thirst at the night, invent a teachable girl in the wind in the coolness, let's slake our thirst at the shadow of the lily of her mind.

Declivio su Lorna

Mese di pochi giorni, o tu dalla docile polpa, chiaro collo curioso seno caldo che nutre, dolce uva nella gola, teneri uccelli che si districano dai vischi della lontananza e che indugiano audacemente tra gli equilibri delle dita a illustrare le loro piume e le loro gioie minute, uccelli disingannati, maiuscoli pavoni delle siepi, aiole come mazzi improvvisati, laghi dallo stupore di goccia: ogni albero ha dietro di se I'ombra sua bene abbigliata, paradisi di crisantemi si addensano in climi azzurri. Ho raccolto la foglia di colore e la ciliegia dimenticata sul colle meno visibile; infanzia raccolta acino ad acino, infanzia sapido racimolo, la formica ha consumato il gusto mutato della ciliegia, I'acqua movenza timida inizia radici. Tra le folle ricciute delle vendemmie la frescura guasta ed apre I'innocuo lume del sole alle rapine svagate dei bimbi. 104

Slope above Lorna

Month of few days, oh you of the docile flesh, bright curious neck warm nourishing breast, sweet grape in the throat, tender birds untangling themselves from the traps of distance and lingering boldly between the fingers' balances to show their feathers and their tiny joys, disenchanted birds, great peacocks of the hedgerows, flowerbeds like improvised bouquets lakes with the wonderment of drops: behind each tree is its ordered shadow, paradises of chrysanthemums accumulate in blue climates. I have gathered the colored leaf and the forgotten cherry on the least visible hill; childhood gathered grape by grape, childhood tasty cluster, the ant has consumed the cherry's changed taste, the water timid motion sends out roots. Among the curled throngs of grape-harvests coolness taints and opens the sun's harmless light to the children's thoughtless plunder.

104

Lorna

Una luce senza centro spazia gia la terra attutisce labbra rosse e bambini, negli eremi fragili dell'aria si raccolgono api e stclle; e gia vano e chiedere alle alluvioni il perche dei monti rimasti addietro il perche delle zinnie che si dissetano al gelo dei chiostri di Lorna. Tra gli esempi compiuti delle notti e le rugiade ordinate e le foglie trapassate un instabile miele definisce il suo zodiaco d'oro. Ma non c'e voce d'uccello preso nei lacci esigui delle cacce nei riflessi allegri delle nevi che dolce non trovi esser fraintesa, ogni giovane mosto arde e s'esalta liberato dalle prigioni, ogni fuoco e giardino ogni strumento s'accorda al nuovo tocco del sole. Sole piii piccolo piu umile perche ti lodarono da tutte le parti: che sapesti di lei, della sua voce, della sua bocca segreto di menta ? Uccelli che parlate il mio dialetto la dal prato che balza ad inebriarmi, la dietro il focolare e tra la siepe, che sapeste delle sue fresche ciglia.?

Lorna

A light with no center ranges, already earth mutes red lips and children; in the fragile retreats of air, bees and stars gather; it is already useless to ask floods the reason for mountains left behind the reason for zinnias slaking their thirst at the frost of Lorna's cloisters. Among the completed examples of nights the ordered dews and dead leaves, an unstable honey defines its zodiac of gold But there is no bird-voice caught in the hunters' thin snares in the lively reflections of the snows that doesn't find it sweet to be misunderstood, every young wine burns and exults freed from the prisons, every fire is garden every tool harmonizes with the sun's new touch. Sun, smaller and humbler because they praised you on all sides: what did you know of it, of its voice, of its mouth, secret of mint ? Birds that speak my dialect there in the meadow that leaps to make me drunk, there behind the hearth and inside the hedge, what did you know of its fresh brows?

Che del fiume, se si perdette e divenne celeste per giungere a vederla la dove indugi fruttiferi del vento danno equilibri di vele alle colline? Canestri colmi di pioggia di valle, settimana ingombrata dalle spine e dalle zinnie, dovunque tu ospiti miti mercati nelle tue radure e nelle tue piccole sere compero e vendo e sorrido talvolta agl'inviti della prima brina e bevo al di la delle labbra e so cosi spontaneamente tante gioie e tanto sento legate insieme dita e mani ombra e respiro da far dire precoce e propria l'ora dell'amarti.

What of the river, if it got lost and turned sky-blue so as to arrive and see it there where the wind's fruitful lingering balances the hills like sails ? Hampers filled with valley rain, week cluttered by thorns and by zinnias, everywhere you harbor gentle markets in your clearings and in your brief evenings I buy and sell and smile sometimes at the invitations of the first hoar-frost and I drink beyond the lips in this way I know spontaneously so many joys and feel so much fingers and hands tied together shadow and breath for telling early and exactly right the hour for loving you.

L'amore injermo del giorno

L'amore infermo del giorno i monti fa deserti e inaccessibili ormai. I cimiteri oscuri diluvi hanno accolto I'odore delle macerie, Ie innumerevoli gale della pioggia si assottigliano e vanno ai cieli di carta delle girandole e delle tende. A lungo esita il verde nelle soste dei prati e tra i suoi fregi fiordalisi, Fombra e caduta nelle piazze si e fatta freddi umidi cervi. In citta deboli di mufia nate sotto i venti nelle vetrine e nei gioielli fanciulle non vedute schiudono il Ioro sopore di semplice crisantemo. Stanca allenta Ie dita cerule e svela i puri lineamenti la neve dietro balconi e corti. Dal suo vaso odoroso il vespero ricciuto di germogli indugia sopra il lento discendere del mondo.

The Infirm Love of Day

The infirm love of day makes mountains deserts and inaccessible now. The cemeteries dark deluges , have gathered the smell of rubble, the rain's countless galas thin out and go to paper skies of catherine-wheels and tents. Green hesitates a long time in the fields' pauses and among its fleur-de-lys friezes, the shadow has fallen in piazzas has become cold damp deer. In cities weak with mustiness born under the winds in windows and in jewels unseen girls unfold their simple chrysanthemum stupor. Tired snow slackens its blue fingers and unveils pure features behind courtyards and balconies. From its fragrant vase twilight curling with shoots lingers above the world's slow descent.

La sul ponte

La sul ponte di san Fedele dove la sera abbonda di freddo fieno e dove la pioggia raccoglie tutte Ie sue vele madide c'e da ieri una fanciulla bionda che ha un nome come una corona e che ha perduto per sempre una mano per salutare una rosa. Sulle rive oscure del fieno c'e una nave di pioggia abbandonata dalla notte Dalle stretture delle sorgenti la si libera talvolta la dalia abbigliata di rosso e illumina la crisalide intricata del sole. La un animale azzurro deperisce nella sua tana e Testate legata dalla neve non conosce altro frutto che se stessa.

There on the Bridge

There on the bridge of San Fedele where evening is full of cold hay and where the rain gathers all its soaked sails since yesterday a blonde girl has stood whose name is like a crown and who has lost forever a hand to greet a rose. On the hay's dark shores is a ship of rain abandoned by the night From the narrowness of springs the dahlia dazzled by red frees itself at times and illumines the sun's intricate chrysalis. There a blue beast wastes in its lair and summer bound by snow knows no other fruit than itself.

Perche siamo

Perche siamo al di qua delle alpi su questa piccola balza perche siamo cresciuti txa I'erba di novembre ci scalda il sole sulla porta mamma e figlio sulla porta noi con gli occhi che il gelo ha consacrati a vedere tanta luce ed erba Nelle mattine, se e vero, di tre montagne trasparenti mi risveglia la neve; nelle mattine c'e l'orto che sta in una mano e non produce che conchiglie, c'e la cantina delle formiche c'e il radicchio, diletta risorsa profusa alle mie dita, a un vento che non osa disturbarci Ha sapore di brina la mela che mi diverte, nel granaio s'adagia un raggio amico ed il vecchio giornale di polvere pura; e tutto il silenzio di musco che noi perdiamo nelle valli rende lento Io stesso cammino Io stesso attutirsi del sole che si coglie a guardarci che ci coglie su tutte Ie porte.

Because We Are

Because we are on this side of the Alps on this small rise because we grew up among November grass the sun warms us at the door mother and son at the door we with eyes the frost has consecrated to see so much light and grass Mornings, if it's true, the snow of three transparent mountains awakens me; mornings there's the kitchen-garden that fits into a hand and yields only shells, there's the ants' cellar there's the red chicory, prized resource prodigal under my fingers, under a wind that doesn't dare disturb us The apple I enjoy tastes of hoar-frost, in the granary a friendly ray lies down and the old newspaper of pure dust; and all the silence of moss which we lose in the valleys slows the same walk the same muffling of the sun that catches itself looking at us that catches us at all the doors

O mamma, piccolo e il tuo tempo, tu mi vi porti perch'io mi consoli e la v'e l'erba di novembre, la ν e la franca salute dell'acqua, sani come acqua vi siamo noi; sana azzurra sostanza vi degradano tutte Ie sieste cui mi confondo e che sempre ρΐύ vanno comunicando con la notte Ne attingere al pozzo ne alle alpi ne ricordare come tu non ricordi: ma il sol che splende come cosa nostra, ma sete e fame all'ora giusta e tu mamma che tutto sai di me, che tutto hai tra Ie mani. Con la scorta di te e dell'erba e di quella lampada precaria di cui distinguo la fine, sogno talvolta del mondo e guardo dall'alto l'inverno del nord.

Oh mother, your time is small, you take me there to console myself and there is the November grass, there the frank health of water, there we are healthy as water; all the siestas in which I lose myself and which are always communicating more with night step down to that healthy blue substance To haul neither from well nor Alps nor to remember as you don't remember; but the sun shining like something that belongs to us, but thirst and hunger at the right time and you mother who know everything about me, who hold it all between your hands. With you and the grass as guide and that precarious lamp of which I perceive the end, I dream sometimes of the world and look from on high at the northern winter.

Dietro il paesaggio

Nei luoghi chiusi dei monti mi hanno raggiunto mi hanno chiamato toccandomi ai piedi. Sulle orme incerte delle fontane ho seguito da vicino e senza distrarmi Ie tenebre tenere del polo ho veduto da vicino Ie spoglie luminose gli ornamenti perfettissimi dei paesi dell'Austria. Hanno fatto l'aria tutta fresca di ciliegi e di meli nudi hanno lasciato soltanto che un piccolo albero crescesse sulla soglia della sua tristezza hanno lasciato fuggire in un riverbero un tiepido coniglio di pelo. Per Ie estreme vie della terra caduta assistito da giorni tardi e scarsi discendo nel sole di brividi che spira da tramontana.

Behind the Landscape

In the closed mountain places they reached me called to me touching my feet. On the uncertain traces of fountains I followed the Pole's soft dark from nearby, and undistracted, saw from close by the shining remains the most perfect ornaments of Austrian villages. They cooled the air with bare cherry and apple—trees left only a small tree to grow on the threshold of its sadness they let a warm furry rabbit escape in a gleam. Through the most distant ways of fallen earth helped by late days and few I descend in the sun of shivers that blows from the tramontana.

Part II

From Vocativo (1949-1956)

"Ce qui est digne d'etre contre ce qui Eluard

Epifania

Punge il pino i candori dei colli e il Piave muscolo di gelo nei lacci s'agita, nel bosco. Ecco il mirifico disegno la lucente ferma provvidenza la facondia che esprime e riannoda e sfila echi gemme correnti. Tra voi parvenze e valli appena sollecitate dal soffio del claxon, mormorate dall'alba, valgo come la foglia che riposa col vivo cardo col bozzolo e 1'0ro, valgo 1'0nda minuscola che fu tua sete scoiattolo un giorno, valgo oltre il dubbio oltre l'inverno che s'attarda celeste ai tuoi balconi, valgo pili che il tuo stesso venir menD con la neve che il motore per sempre, fuggendo dietro al sole, tralascia.

Epiphany

The pine pierces the hills' whiteness and the Piave icy muscle stirs in its snares, in the woods. See the marvellous design the bright steady providence the fluency that expresses and re-knots and unravels echoes gems currents. Between you changing forms and valleys scarcely solicited by the klaxon's breath, murmured by the dawn, my worth the leaf that rests with the live thistle the cocoon the gold, my worth the tiny wave that was your thirst one day, squirrel, my worth beyond doubt beyond winter that lingers blue on your balconies my worth more than your own self fainting with snow which the motor, fleeing behind the sun, abandons forever.

Fiume aU'alba

Fiume all'alba acqua infeconda tenebrosa e lieve non rapirmi la vista non le cose che temo e per cui vivo Acqua inconsistente acqua incompiuta che odori di larva e trapassi che odori di menta e gia t'ignoro acqua lucciola inquieta ai miei piedi da digitate logge da fiori troppo amati ti disancori t'inclini e voli oltre il Montello e il caro acerbo volto perch'io dispero della primavera.

104

River at Daybrea\

River at daybreak water infertile dark and swift don't rob me of sight nor the things I fear and live by Insubstantial water incomplete water smelling of ghost and death smelling of mint and already I do not know you water firefly restless at my feet from many-fingered loggias from flowers overloved you unmoor arch yourself and fly beyond the Montello and the dear harsh face for I despair of spring.

Se non fosse

Se non fosse il tuo volto che feconda e fonde l'acqua e i monti e si fonde in sospiri . . . Frutti effusi a un crepuscolo di seta, prati che a forza districa dal cielo un azzurro dolore, e gerani lassti tra uccelli comignoli e vette Come incenso la stanza, trapassata la Iuna appena sul telaio e tutta accennata per lacrime per palpiti una gioventu sventurata E il paese nel guscio, e il paese nel vetro dove premono uccelli comignoli bandiere, dove il fiume schiafifeggia la tua guancia algido e fabuloso e il dolcissimo melo gia nel velo delle piogge conversa giustamente recline sul tuo cuore. Ancora un tocco a gridii di ghirlande ancora a venti senza accordi a torbide lamiere a ghiacciai spalla a spalla qui sconfinati. Ancora uno sguardo al giardino al braciere di frane e di vette.

76

If It W e r e N o t

If it were not your face that melts and fructifies water and mountains and dissolves in sighs . . . Fruit-trees overflowing in a silk dusk, meadows that a blue sorrow roughly untangles from the sky and geraniums high among birds roof-tiles and peaks Like incense the room, the moon just gone by the window's hoop and all shown through tears through flutterings an unlucky boyhood It is the village in a shell, it is the village in the glass where birds roof-tiles flags crowd where the river freezing and fabled slaps your cheek and the soft apple-tree already veiled by rain converses rightly reclining on your heart. Again a touch to shouting of garlands again to dissonant winds iron sheets to glaciers shoulder to shoulder limitless here. Again a glance at the garden at the brazier of landslides and peaks.

Altrui e mia

ι Dalla viscosa confusione dall'immondo calore sempre invano accenna, sempre torna tuo figlio, ο madre, per Ie curve strade, per infiniti avvolgimenti. Tu nella casa odorate stanze illumini, bolle di cicalette la collina e poco tenero e il guanciale, acque e fieni in cortile il bicchiere incrinato recide. Io sempre a te ritorno, a te ch'eri bambina oggi: e nessun dono il mio cuore dimentico t'ha offerto. Nulla se non la popolosa luce e la cicaletta sul melo del cortile, nulla per te sul desco di scintillante e amabile. Ma la mia mente fallisce e non parlo non parlo a nessuno. Veloce e sordo scendo dal frumento arso a monti, mi distolgo da cicli oscuri e porto afa e chiusi occhi. Lascero Ie mie pene di ieri per il tormento di questo oggi che tu volevi farmi felice narrandomi di te? «Svegliati bimbo, la cicala ha cantato, io sono nata, e luglio.» Aprivi Ie finestre, io respiravo tutto il dolore dell'alba di luglio.

Others' and Mine

ι From sticky confusion from foul heat always in vain your son beckons, always returns, mother, through winding streets, through endless twistings. You illumine fragrant rooms in the house, the hill bubbles with small cicadas and the pillow is not very soft, the cracked tumbler cuts water and hay in the courtyard. I always come back to you, to you who were a child, today: and my forgetful heart has offered you no gift. Nothing except the crowded light and the small cicada on the apple-tree in the courtyard, nothing shining or sweet for you on the table. But my mind fails and I speak I speak to no one. Deaf I descend swiftly from parched wheat to mountains, I turn away from dark cycles and bring sultriness, and closed eyes. Will I leave my sorrows of yesterday for the torment of this today that you wanted to make happy for me telling me about yourself? "Wake up child, the cicada has sung, I am born, it is July." You were opening the windows, I was breathing all the sadness of the July dawn.

£ luglio, la cicala ha miriadi di petali; sei nata. Eri nata allora e su te, lieve ricamo di Iini e vagiti, era il sole; oh tu non ti esaltavi ο madre, al sole, allora. Eri bambina cercavi il latte nella grande estate. Mi hai detto e luglio, quanto inquieto amore di cicale che sete e sete di rugiade dovunque nel cielo in ogni cielo. Dove madre m'acceca Testate, dove io sono? La mia strada s'inerba e dispera. Dove, tra crepe di nuvole negre, che sempre mi tolgono liberta, io penso e non mi vedo? Oggi cosi a lungo ho agonizzato che non ho udito Ie cicale, tempo mi ha tolto il cuore, la strada s'inerba e Ie lacrime s'assiepano al mio sguardo. O mamma. Sopra i dorsi di Lorna il frumento e trebbiato e la stoppia patita va in canicola. Del tuo giorno nulla ho saputo ο mamma e tu me ne hai reso memoria tacendo. Eri bambina, giacevi nella culla nella fiamma delle cicale.

It is July, the cicada has myriads of petals; you are born. You were born then and upon you, light embroidery of flax and infant cries, was the sun; at that time you were not enraptured by the sun, mother. You were a baby searching for milk in the long summer. You have told me it is July, so much uneasy love of cicadas, what thirst and thirst for dew everywhere in the sky in every sky. Where does summer blind me, mother, where am I? My road grows grassy and despairs. Where, among fissures of black clouds, that always rob me of my freedom, do I think and not see myself? This whole long day I was so tortured that I never heard the cicadas, time robbed me of my heart, the road grows grassy and tears hedge my sight, oh mother. On Lorna's slopes the wheat is threshed and the sickly stubble turns toward the dog days. I knew nothing of your day, mother, and you, keeping your silence, gave me back the memory of it. You were a baby, lying in your cradle in the cicadas' flame.

Elegia del venerdi

ι Mai piu rinato, mai piu conosciuto a quale fredda scala a quale estate mi riporti? Che degrada ο s'avventa nel cielo e da se mi divide ο mi rapisce ancora? Ma te distinguo ansimante di fieni, ti distinguo caduto con Io sguardo nel sole dei bicchieri, nel vino breve ed aspro tra Ie piogge fonde, tra Ie rose e Ie erbe —ahi tutto inospite e selvaggio profumo— Torna il monte, scalfisce un canto ad calcinati riposi, a valve aperte il crepuscolo attende, ο ardente l'ora sesta sugge rugiade e fragole al cupo bosco. Ritorna il tuo sguardo e il grande pianto e come di flabelli e di nuvole e di torce verde ribolle il luglio nella stretta dei ghiacci, nel pugnace nel non placato azzurro d'una notte scaturirai cometa sofiocata. Ansimante di fieni ti rivedo ti rivedo perduto nelle tue povere scritture su cui piove equivoca la morte. O alberi, laggiu, voi beneditelo, quei pochi suoni ripetete in folta luce, in corone d'amorose foglie.

Friday Elegy

ι Never again reborn, never again known to what cold stair to what summer do you take me back? That descends or rushes into the sky and divides me from itself or steals me away again? But I discern you breathing hay, I discern you fallen with your glance in the sun of drinking glasses, in brief harsh wine among deep rains, among roses and grass —alas all hostile and savage scent—. The mountain returns, at moments scratches a song sunbleached rests, twilight waits with open valves, or, burning, the sixth hour sucks dew and strawberries from the dark woods. Your glance returns and the loud cry and as though with feather-fans clouds and torches green July boils again in the grip of ice, in the belligerent unappeased night sky you will spurt, stifled comet. I see you again breathing hay see you lost in your poor writings on which death rains, equivocal. You trees, down below, bless him, repeat those few sounds in dense light, in crowns of loving leaves.

Con papaveri e lucciole e more qui senza fine i prati s'insaporano alia luna, qui con noi le morte dolomiti. II

II venerdi e cosi stento che appena ci sta il tormento della formica, il sabato d'oro e di rame non sara mai; ma tintinnano falci, trema azzurro ferrigno e I'erba mura il monte. Forse il sole serpendo maldestro s'avventura al di qua del fermento dell'estate, forse la fonte arida stoma i bovi dalla sete di latte, dalla sete di nevi. Sei, venerdi di cereo sole e di tetre lusinghe di vallate intorno alia mia mente come un gemito, sei, stretto come tomba, errante come scala percossa da un mattino che rispecchia follia. Sei me, sei questa ebete lena di muco e d'astenie, —vicinanza che gli occhi cauterizza o silenzi che offendono anche il piu scarso monte del meriggio— sei la povera casa ed il povero cibo ch'io consumo agitato da terribili cieli. E I'ansia adombra il tavolo greve di tanti crepuscoli azzurri di tante danze di tanti fogliami, spezza le mani delle ghirlande estive La presso le divoranti chine dove posano ancora fanciulle d'oggi e di ieri,

informulati amori che si spengono . . .

84

With poppies fireflies blackberries here without end the meadows are fragrant in the moonlight, here with us the dead Dolomites. II

Friday is so lean it hardly contains the ant's torment, it will never be the Saturday of gold and copper; but scythes clink, iron blue shimmers and grass walls the mountain. Perhaps the sun snaking clumsily ventures this side of summer's ferment, perhaps the dry spring turns the cattle aside from thirst for milk, thirst for snow. You are, Friday of waxen sun and dark lures of valleys around my mind like a moan, you are, narrow as a grave, rambling as a staircase, struck by a morning that mirrors madness. You are me, are this dull breath of mucous and asthenia, —nearness that cauterizes eyes or silences that offend even the sparsest mountain of noon— you are the poor house and the poor food I consume roiled by terrible skies. And anxiety darkens the table heavy with so many blue twilights so many dances so much foliage, it breaks the hands of summer garlands. There near the devouring slopes where girls of yesterday and today pause, unformulated loves that die away . . .

104

Esperimento

I

L'estate ancora esalta le recondite lave della mia mente. E voi crocevia divampati, pingui o friabili paesi concimati dal verde, fervete nei passato nei cocente male ch'io fui. Torno all'erba malefica torno al sole del ponte a te avaro arco su acri correnti fredde che sempre mi turbano, a te nuda candela che distilli odore e cere d'ossessione e il torpore che torce le acque in roccia e le cancella. Si sperpera gigante, si risucchia e sfonda I'Acheronte. E alia forza degli addii irreversibili, al fragore sovrano del motore arretro, esile fisima, e deterso presto e di me il petrigno bosco.

Experiment

ι Summer still heaves my mind's hidden lava. And you blazing crossroads fat or crumbling villages fertilized by green, you burn in the past in the scorching evil that I was. I return to the noxious grass to the bridge's sun to you mean arch above fierce cold currents that always unsettle me, to you naked taper that distills scent and wax of obsessions and the torpor that wrings the water in the rock and obliterates it. The Acheron wastes itself, gigantic, eddies back and breaks through. And at the violence of the irreversible farewells, at the supreme roar of the motor I draw back, thin whim, and the stony woods are quickly cleansed of me.

All'estate all'essudarsi di me dell'essere in torride finzioni alia luce immedicabile volgo invano Ie reni, m'interro in fisiche verdi lentezze. Ma pure e vostro questo greto assiduo che eccede, vostra e l'ora che stride di canzoni e di preghiere, vostro il sangue premuto dalle nuche uomo da uomo A bocca aperta mi sento remoto E gia zampeggia il ponte O scansione sospesa via vita verita ponte chi t'aprira tra informi tenebrose onuste erbe, ponte chi ti dara alle armate ombre sul greto alle erte acque in rovina? E tu nel vuoto nel vortice del ponte, tu la cui bella fronte soggiace al verde squamoso del mondo .

To summer to the pouring out of me of my being in torrid fictions to the irremediable light I turn my back in vain, bury myself in physical green sloth. But still it is yours, this unending river-bed that overflows, yours is the hour that chirrs with songs and prayers, yours the blood squeezed from necks man by man Open-mouthed I feel remote And the bridge already moves Oh suspended scansion via vita verita bridge who will open you among shapeless dark laden grasses bridge who will give you to the armed shadows on the river-bed to the steep ruined waters? And you in the void in the whirlpool of the bridge you whose lovely forehead yields to the world's scaly green. . . .

Caso vocativo

ι 0 miei mozzi trastulli pensieri in cui mi credo e vedo, ingordo vocativo decerebrato anelito. Come lordo e infecondo avvolge un cielo armonie di recise ariste, vene dubitanti di rivi, e qui deruba gia Ie lampade ai deschi sostituisce il bene. Come i cavi s'ingranano a crinali 1 crinali a tranelli a gru ad antenne e ottuso mostro in un prima eterno capovolto il futuro diviene. U suono il movimento I'amore s'ammollisce in bava in fisima, gettata torcia il sole mi sfugge. Io parlo in questa lingua che passera.

Vocative Case

ι Oh my mutilated toys thoughts in which I believe and see myself, voracious vocative decerebrated yearning. How filthy and infertile a sky enfolds harmonies of cut ears of corn, hesitant veins of streams, and here it already steals the lamps from tables substitutes the good. As wires mesh onto ridges ridges onto snares onto cranes onto antennas and tomorrow becomes a dull monster in a yesterday continually capsizing. Sound motion love soften in slaver in caprice, the sun—thrown torch— escapes me. I speak in this tongue that will pass.

II

Anni perduti sotto la rotta vampa pomeridiana dei cicloni, anni dove I'attesa mi dissolse, dove straziato il ritorno invocai; la dietro la mia vita, presso I'addentante torrenziale condanna che mezzogiorno ormai vieta e la vana perennita del sole. Tremo e piango tra i boschi ? O grumi verdi, ostile spessore d'erompenti pieghe, terra—passato di tomba— donde la mia lingua disperando si districa e vacilla; vacilla se dal dorso attonito del monte smuove le sue lebbrose fronti il cielo. Ah passaggio mio fervido, accorato amoroso passaggio. Vedo felci avanzare e sciuparsi nelle nere correnti, e tra vaganti inferni, gorghi atomici, il pudore d'ortica e il vino e il dolce lavoro di Dolle deprimere il suo lume, e la vite inclinarsi disossata sventurata sulle case, e I'uva chiudere il vento e il giorno.

162

Years lost under the broken afternoon blaze of cyclones, years when waiting dissolved me, when tormented I invoked return; there behind my life, near the biting torrential judgment that noon now forbids and the empty perpetuity of sun. Do I shake and cry in the woods? Green clots, hostile thickness of bursting folds earth—grave's past— whence my despairing tongue is freed and sways; sways if from the astonished mountain spine sky stirs its leprous brows. Ah my fervid passing, grieved amorous passing. I see ferns move forward and wilt in the black currents, and among wandering hells, atomic vortices, I see the nettle's modesty the wine and the easy work of Dolle lower its lamp and the limp vine tilt unlucky over the houses, and the grape close wind and day.

104

La notte di Serravalle

I

Suona e fugge I'ora di notte, la confusione dell'estate. Pioggia e stridi di carte sul piazzale. E il malvagio pallore il gran teatro di Serravalle i logori battenti apre a miracolo; qui trafuga le ultime sue specie la terra alia deriva, e fronte scagliata agli agitati abissi tutta spigoli rompe Serravalle tutta festoni cresce, tutta scale. Apre i battenti la strada strozzata e la nobile pietra si torce si consuma alle furie montane della pioggia. O mondo acceso d'archi spento d'archi, mondo trafitto da mille flagelli vitrei viventi, lampo a lampo arrischxato, il lastrico nell'acqua scatta e arranca e il cancello di ferro desolato ruggine ed acqua infonde al mio costato.

Night at Serravalle

ι The hour of night strikes and flees, the confusion of summer. Rain and rattling papers in the piazza. And the evil pallor. The great theatre of Serravalle opens its worn doors to miracle; here earth, set adrift, carries off its last species, and brow hurled at churning abysses Serravalle breaks, all angles, grows, all festoons, all stairs. The bottle-neck street opens its doors and the noble stone is wrung, consumed by the mountain furies of the rain. Oh world kindled by arcs extinguished by arcs world pierced by a thousand live glass scourges, risked flash by flash, the pavement leaps and hobbles in the water and the gate of desolate iron infuses rust and water into my ribs.

II

S'abbattera la porta brancolera d'assenze il porticato singultera tremando d'altane e di balconi I'abitato, perch'io se appena trepida diradi, pioggia, ancora ti chiami tra le squallide tende, tra le grevi fibre del mondo che non da piu suono, tra i velluti defunti, vergine danza davanti ai ferrei monti. Si calmera la pietra del piazzale solo se fuggi—e pesa ogni pensiero oltre ogni vero—solo se diradi e piu non ti conosci e vai nell'ombra vuota benedicendo le tormentate rupi. Sciogli il futuro, eludi il Iosco tergo, dimmi i corpi tutti in pianto il fragile fanale lo scheletro filiforme della luce poca eco riecheggiami da gole corrose di vicoli dagli atri gia mondati dalla luna le perdute ragioni della vita.

162

The door will give way the colonnade waver with absences the village will sob, loggias and balconies shaking, so that if, fluttering, you hardly slacken, rain, I should still call to you among the dismal hangings, heavy fibres of the world that no longer sounds, among dead velvets, virgin dance in front of the iron mountains. The piazza's stone will quiet only if you flee—and every thought weighs beyond every truth—only if you slacken and know yourself no more and go into the empty shadow blessing the tortured cliffs. Unloose the future, evade the sinister back, tell me of bodies all lamenting the fragile lantern the thread-like skeleton of light faint echo re-echo for me from corroded throats of lanes and halls cleansed long since by the moon the lost reasons for life.

104

I compagni corsi avanti

Compagno, a sera io volgo, ove piu antico d'aneliti e di piante affonda il bosco. Ah perduto alle spalle, tra il nemico sole, perche piu ormai non ti conosco? E va, Testate in guerra, muove al corso dei suoi dolori le grandi erbe e i fumi. Ah compagno, chi ti dara soccorso quando agosto deflagri e ti consumi? Esule il cuore, dentro il regno vuoto brancolo, e tardi, e monte io muto a monte. Dove, con altro sguardo, nel remoto gorgo, nel fango celi la tua fronte ? Fieni in faville sui cammini e, vive ancora, d'altri di memori luci. Ah compagno, ma a quali spente rive la disillusa vita riconduci ? Dove sei se Diana gia trasuda gemmante tra i notturni rami e invade delle ore il giro diafano e denuda terrori ebbri di foglie e di rugiade ? Oh stringiti alia terra, a terra premi tu la tua fantasia. Strugge la mite notte Hitler, di fosforo, e congiunta in alito di belva sugli estremi muschi dardeggia Diana le impietrite verita della mia mente defunta.

The Friends Who Have Gone Ahead

Friend, I turn at evening, where the woods, older with sighs and plants, founder. Ah lost at my back, in the enemy sun, why do I no longer even know you? Summer goes to war, moves in the flow of its sorrows the tall grasses and smoke. Friend, who will come to your aid if August erupts and consumes you ? My heart exiled, within the empty realm I grope, it is late, and I exchange mountain for mountain. Where, with a different glance, in the remote whirlpool, in the mud, do you hide your forehead ? Hay in sparks along paths, and you remember lights of other days, still burning. Ah friend, but to what extinguished shores do you take back your disenchanted life? Where are you if Diana already seeps glowing among nocturnal branches and invades the diaphanous turning of the hours and bares drunken terrors of leaves and dew? Cling to earth, press your fantasy to earth. Hitler destroys the gentle night of phosphorescence and joined in the wild beast's breath above the farthest mosses Diana strikes the petrified truths of my dead mind.

Dove io vedo

ι Favore, aroma appena fiatato, estate che scuotesti dal seno aperto di settembre spighe ed erbe su tutta la terra ed eccitasti Timmaturo sole e il sudore benigno e il pigro verdeggiare d'uve tra argille e nubi, breve fervore in cui mi riconosco sopravvissuto, ovunque, ovunque I'occhio mio gia lebbroso accendi? Non su tutta la terra, non dovunque ma solo dove oggi mi rinvenni, dove scelse il mio cuore. Tenerissima valle che un filo di frescura apre a ricetto di fragole e di gocciole, alluso Iume di mattina, tu animato Soligo poveri specchi e povere penombre: dove sei che davanti a te e nel tuo sottile definirti io sto per sempre e invano ed invano ti parIo mio solo nutrimento? Ma oggi qui accadesti, oggi dalie e campanule e pioppi e astri sfarfallano sui mellificanti paesaggi, oggi trepidamente guardo la valle che per sempre amero. Torrido e debole settembre s'allunga dentro il nord tra pomi azzurri, fino ai pomi azzurri. Sovrabbondano i colli. IOO

Where I See

ι Favor, aroma scarcely breathed, summer that you shook from September's open breast wheat-ears and grass over all the earth and you roused the unripe sun benign sweat the lazy greening of grapes between clay and clouds brief heat in which I recognize myself survived, everywhere, everywhere do you kindle my eye, already leprous? Not on the whole earth, not everywhere but only where today I came back to myself where my heart chose. Tenderest of valleys a thread of coolness opens to shelter strawberries and dew, morning light hinted at, you lively Soligo poor mirrors and poor half-shadows: where are you that before you and in your subtle defining of yourself I stand forever and in vain in vain speak to you my only sustenance? But today you happened here, today dahlias and bluebells poplars and stars flutter above honeyed countryside today I look fearfully at the valley I will always love. Torrid and weak September extends inside the north among blue apples, up to blue apples. The hills abound. IOI

II

Troppo scarsi occhi per tanta ricchezza, o cuore troppo lento per tanto amore, per tutto il sole, mia voce soltanto umana Infinito letargo e spasimo, contestato dominio —montes exsultastis— e barbaglio di fiori piu che la mia mente palpitanti, gemebondi piu che di vita, fiori che mai I'inverno calmera che mai lacrime scioglieranno, troppo tremore per il mio chiuso corpo Messa a fuoco e I'ansia nell'augusta profondita dell'ora nona, e settembre per sempre nell'azzurro fruttuosi cieli apre al genio inquieto del sole.

102

Too few eyes for so much richness, oh heart too slow for so much love, for the whole sun, my voice simply human Endless lethargy and pain, contested rule —montes exsultastis— and shimmer of flowers pulsing more than my mind, lamenting more than life, flowers winter will never quiet tears will never loose, too great a tremor for my closed body Anxiety is focused in the majestic depth of the ninth hour, and September eternally opens fruitful skies in the blue to the uneasy genius of the sun.

Ecco il verde sottile . .

Ecco il verde sottile dei nastri e i decadenti gerani al tuono e lacrime lacrime ai vetri spenti; Ecco il poco diluvio ecco I'ora perduta ecco il lampo liliale che t'ha riconosciuta. Nastri rapiti al vuoto, lenzuola algide ignude, erta piazza che al cenno deH'amor tuo si schiude, nastri e lampi leggeri e tu, vita liliale, tu volto ove una sera mansueta prevale, tu volto ove la pioggia si pacifica incerta, a oblio piega I'esausta terra ai vortici offerta, piegami tu a fidenti tenebre, al tuo silenzio.

104

Behold the Thin Green

Behold the thin green of ribbons and geraniums declining at the thunder and tears tears at the dimmed panes; Behold the scant downpour behold the lost hour behold the lilywhite flash that has revealed you. Ribbons torn from the void, icy bare sheets, steep piazza that at the sign of your love opens, ribbons and quick flashes and you, lily-like life, you, face, where a mild evening prevails, you, face, in which the rain dies down uncertain, bends to oblivion the exhausted earth offered to the whirlwind, you—bend me to trusting darkness, to your silence.

Nuovi autunni

Poche foglie per volta il ciliegio versera sui prato e sui monte, acquei recinti avra la casa e brividi e spogli mattini. Poche, doici parvenze a me dintorno nei risvegli puri d'autunno. Guarito, certe le palpebre e i passi, mi sviluppero dalla notte. Musco e musco vorra ristorarmi, moto splendido audace di torrenti m'aggirer da lungi, oltre il tintinno di vetri e venti ch'io lasciai fuor di casa. Al di dei pensieri distrutti dall'instabile acerbo me stesso conoscero il rigoglio delle cose che s'irradiano dalla mia mano: dello scoiattolo gli stratagemmi o I'arguto manto del bosco o la nota rosa del cielo nel cui riflesso tu bionda a me torni? L'aria immagine tua pungera il nudo cuore e la lingua rimossa dall'essere muta. Di me, sensi e membra saranno una melodia disposta dal sole.

io6

New Autumns

The cherry-tree will shed a few leaves at a time on meadow and mountain, the house will have a watery moat shivers and bleak dawns. A few soft semblances around me in the pure awakenings of autumn. Healed, I will grow out of night, eyelids and footsteps sure. Moss upon moss would like to restore me, splendid bold movement of torrents will surround me from far off, beyond the tinkling of window-glass and the winds I left outside. Beyond the thoughts destroyed by my unstable bitter self I will know the luxuriance of the things that radiate from my hand: the stratagems of the squirrel the keen mantle of the woods or the sky's rosy note in whose reflection do you return to me, my fair-haired one? The air your image will sting the naked heart will sting the tongue to speech. My limbs and senses will be a melody arranged by the sun.

Colloquio «Ora il sereno e ritornato le campane suonano per il vespero ed io le ascolto con grande dolcezza. Gli uccelli cantano festosi nel cielo perche? Tra poco e primavera i prati meteranno il suo manto verde, ed io come un fiore appasito guardo tutte queste meraviglie.» (Scritto su un muro in campagna)

Per il deluso autunno, per gli scolorenti boschi vado apparendo, per la calma profusa, lungi dal lavoro e dal sudato male. Teneramente sento la dalia e il crisantemo fruttificanti ovunque sulle spalle del muschio, sul palpito sommerso d'acque deboli e dolci. Improbabile esistere di ora in ora allinea me e le siepi all'ultimo tremore della diletta luna, vocali foglie emana I'intimo lume della valle. E tu in un marzo perpetuo le campane dei Vesperi, la meraviglia delle gemme e dei selvosi uccelli e del languore, nel ripido muro nella strofe scalfita ansimando m'accenni; nel muro aperto da piogge e da vermi il fortunato marzo mi spieghi tu con umili lontanissimi errori, a me nel vivo d'ottobre altrimenti annientato ad altri affanni attento.

io6

Colloquy "Now it has cleared the bells ring for vespers and I listen to them with great peace. Why do the birds sing festive in the sky? Spring soon and the meadows will put on their green mantle, and I like a withered flower stand looking at all these wonders." (Written on a country wall)

Through deluded autumn, through woods losing their color I appear, through the prodigal calm, far from work and from sweaty evil. Tenderly I smell the dahlia and the chrysanthemum fructifying everywhere on the moss's back, on the submerged pulse of frail gentle waters. Improbable existing from hour to hour aligns me and the hedges to the last quiver of the dear moon; the intimate valley light puts forth vocal leaves. And in a perpetual March the Vesper bells, the wonder of buds wood-birds and languor, in the steep wall in the scratched strophe you beckon me gasping; in the wall breached by rains and worms fortunate March you explain to me with humble distant errors, to me in the quick of October otherwise destroyed attentive to other sufferings.

Sola sarai, cake sfinita e segno, sola sarai fin che duri il letargo o s'ecciti la vita.

E marzo quasi verde quasi meriggio acceso di domenica marzo senza misteri inebeti nel muro.

no

You'll be alone, worn lime and mark, you'll be alone as long as lethargy lasts or life rouses. I like a withered flower stand looking at all these wonders.

And March, almost green almost noon lit with Sunday March that holds no mysteries stunned in the wall.

Ill

I paesaggi primi

Dal mio corpo la coltre di neve rimuovi, padre, e il sole sei che brusco mi anima: e alle mie dita componi frutti e fiori intensi in un soffice inverno che pur duole pur duole ovunque su in collina ? Dal tuo pennello fervido ma talvolta piu algido che specchi che cieli perduti nei cieli, lavorano di luci e muschi i paradisi ed i presepi che tutt'intorno hai gia, che sulla bianca parete a me seduci, tu modesto signore di Lorna che creasti e che ti crea, tu artefice di me, di un mai sopito amore.

112

The First Landscapes

From my body, father, you remove the blanket of snow, and you are the sudden sun that quickens me: and at my finger-tips do you arrange vivid fruits and flowers in a mild winter that still aches still aches everywhere high on the hill ? With your brush fervid but sometimes colder than mirrors than skies lost in skies, the paradises and the creches that you already have around you, that you entice to me on the white walls, abound in lights and mosses, you modest lord of Lorna which you created and which creates you, you maker of me, of a never-resting love.

Da un'altezza nuova

ι Ancora, madre, a te mi volgo, non chiedermi del vero, non di questo precluso estremo verde ch'io ignorai per tanti anni e che maggio mi tende ora sfuggendo; alia mia inquinata mente, alia mia disfatta pace. Madre, donde il mio dirti, perche mi taci come il verde altissimo il ricchissimo nihil, che incombe e esalta, dove beatificanti fiori e venti gelidi s'aprono dopo il terrore—e tu, azzurro, a me stesso, alio specchio che evolve nel domani, ancora mi conformi? Ma donde, da quali tue viscere il gorgoglio fosco dei fiumi, da quale ossessione quelle erbe che da secoli a me misero imponi? Amore a te, voce a te, ο disciolto come nevi silenzio, come raggi rasi dal nulla: sorgo, e questo gemito che stringe, questo fiore che irrora di rosso i prati e Ie labbra, questa porta che senza moto si disintegra in canicole ed acque . . .

From a New Height

ι Again, mother, I turn to you, don't ask the truth of me, nor this closed last green I did not know for so many years and which May now fleeing offers to me; to my polluted mind, my shattered peace. Mother, whence my speaking to you, why do you keep silent like the high green the rich nihil, that impends, exalts, where beatifying flowers and icy winds open after the terror—and you, sky, do you still adapt me to myself, to the mirror that evolves into tomorrow ? But whence, from what viscera of yours the dark gurgle of rivers, from what obsession those grasses that for centuries you impose on me, wretched? Love to you, voice to you, or silence melted like snows like rays scraped from nothing: I rise and this groan that binds, this flower that sprinkles fields and lips with red, this door that motionless crumbles into dog days and waters . . .

Ε, come da un'altezza nuova, l'anima mia non ti ricorda— in scalinosi sogni, in impervie astenie, tra dolce fumo e orti approfonditi la sotto il lago, la nelle rugiade traboccanti, dall'occhio ereditati ancora, ancora al tocco triste dell'alba lievitanti . . . II

Un senso che non muove ad un'immagine, un colore disgiunto da un'idea, un'ansia senza testimoni ο una pace perfetta ma precaria: questo e l'io che mi desti, madre e che ora appena riconosco, ne parola ne forma ne ombra? Al vero—al negro bollore dei monti— con insaziate lacrime ancora, ancora sottratto per un giorno aH'aculeo del drago, ritorno e non so non so tacere. Nulla dunque compresi del brancicare avido di bestie d'insetti e fiori e soli, nulla m'apparve del lavoro la sussurrato e sparso nei campi, aggrinzito nel nido, ne il sudore m'apparve, I'altrui vigile combustione, ed io solo io trasceso in un feroce colloquente vuoto fronte a fronte m'attinsi? χι 6

And, as from a new height, my soul does not remember you— in dreams of steps, in impervious asthenias, between mild smoke and deep-dug gardens there under the lake, there in the overflowing dew, still inherited by the eye still rising at the sad touch of dawn . . . II A sense that does not move to an image, a color detached from an idea, an unwitnessed anxiety or a peace perfect but precarious: is this the I you gave me, mother, that now I scarcely recognize, not word not shape not shadow? To truth—to the black seethe of mountains— with tears still unsated, still saved for a day from the dragon's sting, I return and I don't know I don't know how to keep silent. I understood nothing, then, of the greedy groping of beasts insects flowers and suns, nothing appeared to me of the work whispered and strewn there in the fields; shrivelled in the nest neither did sweat appear to me, others' watchful combustion, and I alone I, transcended in a fierce speaking void, brow to brow did I attain myself ?

1x7

Calda la mano accarezza ancora il frutto. Nel vicolo il bambino e I'artigiano. Vivo il lume degli occhi nel profondo. Questo fu mio, ne mai seppi, mai vidi ? Per voi non m'allietai ne piansi ancora? Madre ignorai il tuo volto ma non I'ansia proliferante sempre in ogni piega in ogni bene in ogni tuo rivelarmi, ma non I'amore senza riparo che da te, mostro o spirito, m'avvolge e aridamente m'accalora.

ii8

The warm hand still strokes the fruit. In the side-street child and workman. Lively the eyes' light in the depths. Was this mine and did I never know, never see? Did I still not rejoice not weep for you ? Mother your face was unknown to me but not the anxiety always multiplying in each crease in every good in all your revealings to me, but not the irreparable love which from you, monster or spirit, enfolds and warms me aridly.

35

Campea

I

Nella fredda Campea, dove i crinali vibrano alle nubi a piombo sulle spoglie sulle ombre del degenerante agosto, il pipistxello allarga le ali e scatta, involuta la luce nulla piu annuncia, brucano sussurri oscuri le erbe nei vicoli sepolte. Qui forse io fui, con la mano sorressi la mia fronte, al rifugio degli uccelli smagliante di miele e di vischio al bosco superbo d'aflfusolate lune sospirai. Forse qui sorressi la tua fronte di sangue e di pietra forse qui conoscesti qui conobbi cio che va scemando con noi oltre ogni morte. Presso Dolle verdissima di meli appena usciti da lunghe abluzioni, presso il bosco superbo d'affusolate lune, quando i funghi spuntano di tana e s'intramano i raggi i cardi i ragni. Quando paralizzata la mano regge la fronte e la fulva verticale bestemmia cieli di perlati atolli incinera.

Campea

ι In the cold Campea, where ridges quiver in clouds vertical above sloughings above the shadows of declining August, the bat spreads its wings and swoops, curled light no longer announces anything, dark whispers browse grass in buried lanes. I was here perhaps, resting my forehead on my hand, I sighed at the birds' refuge bright with honey and mistletoe at the woods proud with spindle moons. Perhaps here I supported your brow of blood and stone perhaps here you knew, I knew, what is waning with us beyond every death. Near Dolle all green with apple-trees newly emerged from long ablutions, near the woods proud with spindle moons, when mushrooms sprout from lairs and rays thistles spiders interweave. When the paralyzed hand supports the forehead and the tawny vertical curse burns skies of pearled atolls to ash.

In fede evolve l'anima, tutto accoglie e allontana. Antico e vivo e il ricamo che preme e carda il sonno delle mie tempie insoddisfatte: foreste ed acque spettinate e fiere, meli dagli aspri acini rossi e il Soligo che cinge gli ostacoli di colli e siepi con spume sommesse. Tenui, tenaci architetture architetture di formiche, disarmonie d'alveari dove il miele si stringe in coerenza di raggi, apparite, strutture risibili ma forza senza grazia senza nome, apparite, supreme ustioni, a ritroso dipanate la luce ieri inestricabile gli equivoci grumi dei corpi, osate contro il cuore che appassionatamente vi palpita, contro il sole incommensurabile, contro il grigio asilo della mente.

The soul evolves in faith, gathers and removes everything. The embroidery that crushes and cards the sleep of my dissatisfied temples is ancient and alive: tangled proud forests and waters apple-trees with tart red berries and the Soligo that binds the barriers of hill and hedge with meek foam. Slight stubborn architectures architectures of ants, disharmonies of hives where honey tightens in a coherence of rays, you appear, laughable structures but graceless strength without a name, you appear, supreme burns, unravelled backwards, the light yesterday inextricable the equivocal clots of bodies, dared against the heart that beats here passionately, against the immeasurable sun, against the mind's gray asylum.

Esistere psichicamente

Da questa artificiosa terra-carne esili acuminati sensi e sussulti e silenzi, da questa bava di vicende —soli che urtarono fili di ciglia ariste appena sfrangiate pei colli— da questo lungo attimo inghiottito da nevi, inghiottito dal vento, da tutto questo che non fu primavera non luglio non autunno ma solo egro spiraglio ma solo psiche, da tutto questo che non e nulla ed e tutto cio ch'io sono: tale la verita geme a se stessa, si vuole pomo che gonfia ed infradicia. Chiarore acido che tessi i bruciori d'inferno degli atomi e il conato torbido d'alghe e vermi, chiarore-uovo che nel morente muco fai parole e amori.

Existing Psychically

From this artful earth-flesh thin sharp senses and starts and silences, from this slaver of events —suns that collided with threads of eyelashes sparsely fringed wheat-spikes across the hills— from this long instant swallowed by snows, swallowed by wind, from all this which was not spring not July not autumn but just sickly glimmer just psyche, from all this which is nothing and is everything that I am: in this way truth groans to itself, wants to be an apple that swells and soaks. Sour brightness that weaves the stings of hell of atoms and the murky struggle of seaweed and worms, egg-gleam that in the dying slime makes loves and words.

Impossibilita della parola

Se con te, sorella, se in tua vece giacendo corpo di vetro, dal vetro della bara dal basso dolce e pauroso, il mondo veduto avessi, ieri, tra bisbigli di campane e il compianto di novembre —come in un vecchio film venne narrato— se il tuo silenzio col mio mutato avessi, non maggiore l'affanno, non la morte maggiore: e consumato Io stanco equivoco ora mi dorrei? E se per te compagno, se in tua vece i folgoranti prati la terra tagliente la neve saziata avessi, nel tuo grido quale grido mio per te, dal cuore lacerato, quale fatale e fosco giorno a lieto volto a aperto petto salutato avrei. Che mi trattenne lungi da voi, dal vostro sonno sterile ο dalla vostra umile apoteosi? Forse quella che dicono sporca speranza— e al gioco spinto ancora da viscere agitate di presente, di fisici conati, non disertai da questo esistere ove terra

Impossibility of the Word

If with you, sister, if in your place prostrate body of glass, from the glass of the coffin from the soft and fearful base, if only I had seen the world, yesterday, between whispers of bells and November's lament —told like an old film— if only I had changed your silence with mine, no greater the anxiety, no greater the death: and, the weary equivocation consumed, would I regret it now ? And if for you, friend, if in your place I had the flashing meadows the cutting earth the sated snow in your cry like my cry for you, from the torn heart, what dark and fatal day would I have greeted with a happy face an open breast. What kept me far from you, from your sterile sleep or humble apotheosis? Perhaps what they call soiled hope— and still urged to the game by churning viscera of present, of physical efforts, I did not desert from this existence where the mind touches and drinks earth, where the sun

tocca e beve la mente, dove il sole e un lontano martirio. Non disertai, ne seguirvi mi fu dato oltre l'accadimento Io schema atono afoso delle lacrime. Speranza e fede, virtu che dai cieli discendono, assai ρϊύ che il fuoco oifeso di carita. Voci ed occhi traditi assai, ma ρϊύ tu ofiesa carita senza potenza, sgomenta anima; ne te volli salvare per alia fine perderti, pietoso non fui troppo di me se prime e verdi sempre, nelle ombre mie, speranza carita fede non foste voi quella che pieta di noi si dice. E se un giorno dal fango, da una veglia impossibile, ο da una sede non umana, ο da un'innominabile certezza 10 - non - io ripensassi a questo spazio gocciola, astuta pietra, a questa sacra e feroce brevita di cose e sensi e segni, se il fuoco di Marte cogliessi avvolto alle sue sere e mari di salutari effimere salsedini e fanciulle protese ad abbracciare 11 luccichio degl'inferi e l'opera che edifica e ricade in se come in un sogno, forse anch'io —reo di speranza e d'amore— se tu fossi, sarei, tu ch'e da folli il nominare, da folli il tacere ? Stipato avello, attesa, eco, di testa mozza: al piu blasfemo dei silenzi equivale.

is a distant martyrdom. I did not desert, nor was I allowed to follow you beyond the happening the toneless sultry scheme of tears. Hope and faith, virtues that descend from skies, much more than charity's offended fire. Much-betrayed voices and eyes, but even more so you, outraged and powerless charity, dismayed soul; nor did I want to save you only to lose you in the end. I was not too merciful with myself if first and always green, in my shadows, faith hope charity you were not you who are called mercy upon us. And if one day from the mud, from an impossible vigil, or from an inhuman place or a certainty that can't be named I - not - I were to think again about this space, drop of water, sagacious stone, this sacred and fierce brevity of things senses signs, if I were to gather the Mars-fire enveloped in its evenings and seas of salutary ephemeral brininess and girls leaning to embrace the glitter of hells and the work that builds and falls back into itself as in a dream, perhaps I too —guilty of hope and love— if you were, would I be, you whom it would be madness to name madness not to name? Crowded sepulchre, waiting, echo, of lopped head: equivalent to the most blasphemous of silences.

Ma donde in suoni che nulla non di te colmi insegnano, non cieli ne opere ne volti ne Io stesso adusto Ioro contraddirsi, io mi trascino e tento ? Dai mattini orribili tu liberami dalla luce infinita che non leva a se Ie mie scomposte passioni, i gesti invano ripetuti, ai mattini toglimi, ai risvegli nel raggiante terrore, tu risveglio perpetuo su te stesso.

But where in sounds which teach nothing if not filled with you, not skies nor works nor faces nor the same dry contradiction of theirs, do I drag myself and strive? Free me from horrible mornings from endless light that does not lift to itself my disordered passions, the gestures uselessly repeated, take away from me in the mornings, in awakenings in radiant terror, you, perpetual reawakening upon yourself.

Colle di Giano

I

Pigro I'asse gia s'inclina al vuoto. II fiato mite dei bambini, il sole a pochi passi ma agli ultimi confini, i fiori e gli astri raggelati ai muri. E umido quasi messo a nudo d'entro un sonno d'argilla —d'entro larghe mattine di fogliame— gia con brusio di muffe e muschi e minimi uccelli laggiu s'intenebra il lavoro. Spuntano tombe e campane, dilaga da lapidi e fronti troppo lisce pace e sgomento. Forse solo I'affanno e il gridio dei bambini e la trombetta che scavalca i monti, forse solo I'amore. Oh come, come vi parlero? Ma forzo il cuore, forzo gli occhi a accendersi, ad accendere vita. II

In una sede abbagliante s'attutisce tutta la mia vita, non piu che filigrana a voce bassa piange la mia voce; amaramente accanto mi lascio la vita e in un dolore affondo chiaro e senza domani. A nessuno diro che il mio fuoco in eterno durera, che il sole dimesso, mia veste, che gl'immensi

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Hill of Janus

ι Lazy, the axis already tips to the void. The mild breath of children, the sun a few steps off but at the last borders, flowers and stars frozen onto walls. And damp, almost laid bare within a clay sleep —inside wide mornings of foliage— already with buzzing of moulds and mosses and tiny birds work darkens below. Tombs and bells rise, peace and dismay overflow from too-smooth tombstones and brows. Perhaps only the anguish and the whimpering of children and the trumpet that bestrides the mountains, perhaps love alone. How, how shall I speak to you ? But I force my heart, force my eyes to kindle, to kindle life. II My whole life fades away in a dazzling place, no more than filigree my voice cries, my voice, low, bitterly I lay aside my life and founder in a clear grief with no tomorrow. I will tell no one that my fire will last forever, that another hand already prunes the modest sun, my garment,

fogliami gia dirada un'altra mano, che in meriggio e in autunno violento un occhio si rivela. Palpitante inganno verita dissociata aperta a venti, ad erbe polverose. Ah meta del mio sogno e consumata, pervicace Febo come una piaga, pervicaci colori mie piaghe dolcissime pel mondo. E cola il cuore al calore di lente che infrollisce le mura e i dorsi, che lima il ripido respiro. O vita irraggiungibile o remota passione che edifica il nulla . . . Ill

Spazio e spazio ancora mi confonde, Tantipodo intendo della vita, nel nitore profondo sui liberato colle monde e quiete erbe colori atomi assenze. Giaccio nella mia vera voce, m'inoltro nella stasi prima, nella luce mai saziata. Presso un uomo scivola il sole, uomo I'azzurro gia velato dei boschi. Trovo il mio vero corpo le mie ossa e le lacrime, trovo I'amore che sottrassi alia violenta terra, ortiche occhi aliti invetriati

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the immense foliage, that at noon and in autumn an eye emerges violently. Quivering deceit dissociated truth open to winds, to dusty grasses. Half of my dream is spent, stubborn Phoebus like a wound, stubborn colors my sweet wounds for the world. And the heart dissolves at the lens's heat that softens walls and mountain ridges, that sharpens the steep breath. Oh unattainable life remote passion that builds nothingness . . . III Space and more space confounds me, I understand the antipodes of life, in the deep clarity on the freed hill clean quiet grass colors atoms absences, I stretch out in my real voice, I enter the first stasis, in never sated light. The sun slips down beside a man, man-shaped the veiled blue of the forests. I find my real body my bones and tears, I find the love I stole from violent earth, nettles, eyes, glazed breaths.

Tu stolta eternita, mai vinta adorante bestemmia, polvere che si ribella, cielo a me strappato, tu viscere sempre gemebonde, terra .

You foolish eternity, unconquered adoring blasphemy, rebellious dust, sky torn from me, you always plaintive viscera, earth . , .

Dal cielo

Se in te mi esprime il risveglio se io tutto avvampo e sono mente, 10 tuo seno, realta: brevi figure tra cui svolse 11 suo debole senso la mia vita, lieto e aspro rifugio che l'alba senza afTanni e il sole gia sommuove di pura meraviglia, ecco il dono e l'azzurro usciti in forza dalla morte, ecco supero il corpo mio impoverito e il respiro e tutto da te riconosco, cielo, felicita di fibre miti di felci e brine, conclusiva diafana ebrieta, intransigente e fulgida causa che stai nel vero. Dal cielo e questa penombra dove senza termine e la fede anche dell'insetto che procede dalla foglia invernale alia stella che ardendo goccio nella valle, dal cielo e questo scrigno di paesi dormenti tra Ie presenze oscure e feconde dei monti, dal cielo e l'ordine tenace e leggero

From the Sky

If the awakening expresses me in you if all of me blazes and is mind, I your breast, reality: brief shapes among which my life unfolded its frail meaning, happy and rough refuge that effortless dawn and sun already stir with pure wonder, here are the gift and the blue sprung in force from death, here I overcome this impoverished body and breath of mine and I acknowledge everything from you, sky, happiness of soft fern-fibers and hoar-frost, final diaphanous rapture, uncompromising brilliant source that stands in the truth. From the sky is this half-shadow where even the faith of the insect— proceeding from winter leaf to the star that dripped burning into the valley—is endless, from the sky is this coffer of villages sleeping among the dark and fruitful presences of mountains, from the sky is the tenacious and light order of vines on the hills

J39

delle viti sui colli dov'io tacqui e sorrisi, e dal cielo e la strada che gia mi balza dalle mani verso il lavoro e la ventura mentre turge la fiamma dentro il vetro e di tintinni brulicano i boschi. Da te azzurra remota corona, assedio e sostegno, e la mia noncuranza ed il grido onde volgo Ie ormai facili spalle, da te s'irradia la mia pace al di la delle ortiche insonni, dei bronchi in agguato, e se m'adagio e ascolto il sussurro di sagra che fa nostro l'inverno se porgo orecchio alia lusinga bisbigliata dai gerani gia oltre il ghiaccio di gennaio, dal cielo io dico ogni mio moto ogni verde d'atti scintillanti ogni luce d'atti incerti e immaturi per pienezza d'amore, e in amore gia accolte Ie colline io sempre rinascendo insieme riconduco al cielo. Mani, lingua, respiro, dal cielo e questo mio conoscervi, dal cielo vita immemore ti componi al tuo sguardo e il tuo sguardo dal cielo si compone. E in volto di mattino si riannuncia a se quanto da se fu oppresso:

where I fell silent and smiled, and from the sky is the path that already leaps from my hands toward work and chance while the flame swells inside the glass and the woods swarm with ringing. From you remote blue crown, siege and support, is my indifference and the cry from which I turn my back, easy now; from you my peace radiates beyond sleepless nettles, brushwood lying in wait, and if I stretch out and listen to the murmur of the feast that makes winter ours if I turn my ear to the seductions whispered by geraniums already beyond January ice, from the sky I tell each of my motions each green of sparkling acts each light of acts uncertain and unripe through fullness of love, and the hills already embraced in love I eternally in rebirth bring them back together to the sky. Hands, tongue, breath, from the sky comes my knowledge of you, you—oblivious life—create yourself from the sky at your glance and your glance is created from the sky. What oppressed itself in the morning face is announced again:

vedere, udire, ancora a me nuovi ritornano ? E questo io posso donde la faglia senza fondo mi divelse e, fatto sangue, nelle congiunture nuove che il mondo affermano, viventi sensi, muovere a me stesso? Riproposte realta qui dal vuoto che smuore vi attendo perche io sia. Dal cielo e la pieta che il mondo fa consistere.

seeing, hearing, do they still return fresh to me? And this me, from where the bottomless rock-fault uprooted me, and, made into blood, in tht new conjunctions that affirm the world, living senses—can I move to myself? Reproposed realities from the paling void I wait here for you so that I may exist. From the sky comes the mercy that makes the world persist.

M3

Part III

From IX Ecloghe (1957-1960)

Un libro di Ecloghe

Non di dei non di principi e non di cose somme, non di te ne d'alcuno, ipotesi leggente, ne certo di me stesso (chi crederebbe?) parlo. Ne indovino che voglia tanta menzogna, forte come il vero ed il santo, questo canto che stona ma commemora norme s'avvince a ritmi a stimoli: questo che ad altro modo non sa ancora fidarsi. Un diagramma dell' «anima» ? Un paese che sempre piumifica e vaneggia di verde e primavere? Giocolieri ed astrologi all'evasione intenti, a liberar farfalle tra le rote superne ? Trecentomila parti congiunte a fil di lama, I'acre tricosa macchina che il futuro disquama ? Faticosa parentesi che questo isoli e reggi come rovente ganglio che induri nell'uranico vacuo soma, parentesi tra parentesi innumeri, pronome che da sempre a farsi nome attende, mozza scala di Jacob, «io»: I'ultimo reso unico: e dunque dei e prmcipi e cose somme in te, in te potenze, cose d'ecloga degne chiudi; in te rantolo e fimo si fanno umani studi.

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A Book of Eclogues

Not of gods not of princes and not of sublime matters, not of you nor of anyone, reading hypothesis, nor certainly of myself (who would believe it?) do I speak. Nor can I guess why so much lying is needed, strong as the true and the holy, this song which is off-key but commemorates norms ties itself to rhythms, stimuli: this which still can't entrust itself to any other mode. A diagram of the "soul" P A landscape always feathering and babbling of green and springtimes? Jugglers and astrologers intent on escape, on freeing butterflies among celestial wheels ? Three hundred thousand parts joined in a finedrawn perfection: the sharp tangled machine which descales the future? Painful parenthesis which isolates and supports this like a burning ganglion that endures in the uranic vacuous soma, parenthesis among countless parentheses, pronoun forever waiting to become noun, Jacob's lopped ladder, "I": the last made unique: and thus you enclose gods and princes and matters supreme in you, powers in you, things worthy of an eclogue; in you death-rattle and dung become human studies.

Ecloga I I lamenti dei poeti lirici Persone: a,

b

a—Alberi, cespi, erbe, quasi veri, quasi all'orlo del vero, dal dominio del monte che la gran luce simula sempre tornando, scendendo a incristallirvi in oniriche antologie: mite selva un lamento mite bisbigliate un accorato ostinato non utile dire. Significati allungano Ie dita, sensi Ie antenne filiformi. Sillabe labbra clausole unisono con l'ima terra. Perfettissimo pianto, perfettissimo. E tenta di valere, accenna, avvampa l'altra mano dell'uomo. Da lei protesa rugge, accelera il razzo a dipanare il metallo totale dei cieli. Per lei fibrilla il silenzio, incellulisce. Oh aquiloni orientati piu su dell'infanzia, ρίύ del punto che brilla, mano da un fuoco a un altro, mano bisturi. Mano dove gli strati serpeggiano nel coma, dove il ventre della terra accampa profili irriferibili, funzioni insospettate, osceni segni,

Eclogue I The laments of the lyric poets

Personae: a, b

a—Trees, clumps, grasses, almost real, almost on the edge of the real, always returning from the dominion of the mountain which the vast light simulates, descending to crystallize in oneiric anthologies: gentle forest you whisper a soft lament a heartbroken stubborn saying-in-vain. Meanings stretch fingers, senses stretch wire-like antennas. Syllables lips clauses in unison with the lowest earth. Most perfect lament, most perfect. And man's other hand tries to be of value, beckons, burns. Out-thrust by it the rocket roars, accelerates to unwind the total metal of the skies. Through it—silence fibrillates, forms cells. Oh kites aimed higher than infancy, higher than the shining point, hand from one fire to another, scalpel hand. Hand in the strata which creep in the coma, where earth's belly asserts inexpressible profiles, unsuspected functions, obscene signs,

foglie e corpi di sofismi, il libro che non scrisse, la penna, non illustro, il colore. Autopsie, autopsie. Mano da un fuoco a un altro, mano bisturi. Ma pure, ecco, «le mie labbra non freno» insinui, selva, tu molto umiliata, tu quasi viva, piu che viva, quasi viva —le tue foglie movendo bagliori come d'insetto nel lago albuminoso che fu notte fu giorno occhio in gioia occhio in lutto . . . Chiedono, implorano, i poeti, li nutre Lazzaro alia sua mensa, come cigni biancheggiano. Invocano I'amata I'iddio la pia vittima le orme che s'addentrano al simbolo (mori quel simbolo, mori). Nomi hanno, date con interrogativo, schede, schemi, cadaveri com'elitre in oniriche antologie. Perfettissimo pianto, perfettissimo. I poeti tra cui se tu volessi pormi «cortese donna mia» sidera feriam vertice. b—Come per essi, bastera la tua confessione, immodesta, amorosa, e quasi vera e che vera come il canone detta:

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leaves and bodies of sophisms, the book the pen didn't write, color didn't illustrate. Autopsies, autopsies. Hand from one fire to another, scalpel hand. And yet, see, "I do not curb my lips" you insinuate, forest, you much humiliated, you almost alive, more than alive, almost alive —your leaves moving gleams as of insects in the albuminous lake that was night was day eye in joy eye in mourning . . . They ask, implore, the poets, Lazarus feeds them at his table, they shine white as swans. They invoke the loved one the god the pious victim the tracks which plunge deep into the symbol (it died that symbol, died). They have names, dates with a question mark, filing-cards, diagrams, corpses like wing-sheaths in oneiric anthologies. Most perfect lament, most perfect. The poets among whom if you wished to place me "cortese donna mia" sidera feriam vertice. b—As for them your confession—immodest, amorous—is enough, and almost true and more than true as the canon dictates:

a—«Ma io non sono nulla nulla che il tuo fragile annuire. Chiuso in te vivr come la goccia che brilla nella rosa e si disperde prima che l'ombra dei giardini sfiori, troppo lunga, la terra.»

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a—"But I am nothing nothing more than your frail assent. I will live shut in you like the drop that sparkles in a rose and is scattered before the gardens' lengthening shadow skims the earth."

Ecloga II La vita silenziosa a M. I

Sediamo insieme ancora tra colli, nella domestica selva. Tenere fronde dalle tempie scostiamo, soli e cardi e vivaci prati scosto da te, arnica. O erbe che salite verso il buio duraturo, verso qui omnia vincit. E venti estinguono e rinnovano a ogni volgere d'ore e d'acque le anime nostre. Ma noi sediamo intenti sempre a una muta fedele difesa. Tenera sara la mia voce e dimessa ma non vile, raggiante nella gola —che mai I'ombra dovrebbe toccare— raggiante sara la tua voce di sposalizio, di domenica.

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Eclogue Π The Silent Life

ι

toM.

Again we sit together among the hills, in the domestic wood. We brush soft branches from our foreheads, suns and thistles and lively meadows I brush away from you, my dear. Oh grasses that climb toward lasting dark, toward qui omnia vincit. And winds snuff out and renew our souls at every turn of hours and waters. But we sit intent always in a faithful mute defense. My voice will be tender and subdued but not mean; shining in the throat— which shadow should never touch— your wedding voice, your Sunday voice, shining.

Non saremo potenti, non lodati, accosteremo i capelli e le fronti a vivere foglie, nuvole, nevi. Altri vedra e conoscera: la forza d'altri cieli, di pingui reintegratrici atmosfere, d'ebbri paradossi, altri movera storia e sorte. A noi le madri nella cucina fuochi poveri vegliano, dolce legna in cortili cui gia cinge il nulla colgono. Poco latte ci nutrira finche stolti amorosi inutili la ci togliera, che nel prossimo campo le mai fiorite aiole prepara e del cuore i battiti incerti, la pena e I'irreversibile stasi.

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We shall not be powerful, nor praised, we will bring hair and brows close together so as to live leaves, clouds, snows. Another will see and know: the force of other skies, of lush reconstituting atmospheres, of rapt paradoxes, another will move history and fate. For us, mothers in kitchens tend poor fires, gather gentle firewood in courtyards walled by nothingness. A little milk will nourish us until old age carries us off, foolish loving useless, old age that prepares the scant-blossomed flower-beds in the next field and the uncertain beatings of the heart, the pain and the irreversible stasis.

II

Ma tu conoscerai del mio sorriso I'implorazione ferma nei millenni come una ferita, io del tuo I'alba ad ogni alba. Germoglio lieve ti conoscero: quanto aprirai, quanto ci appagherai di lievi avvenimenti. Droghe innocue, bufere di marzo; orti d'iridi e cera, sinecure per menti e mani molli d'allergic; letture su pulviscolo d'estati, letture su piogge, tra spine infinite di piogge. Talvolta Urania il vero come armato frutto ci spezzera davanti: massimi cieli, voli che la notte solstiziale riattizza, gemme di remotissimi odl e amori, d'idrogeno sfolgorante fatica: deposti qui nell'acqua di un pianeta per profili di colchici e libellule. Forse alzero fino a te le mie ciglia fino a te la mia bocca cui I'attesa altero dire, esistere. E anche nella terra, domani, I'ultimo mio indizio inazzurrira di stellari entusiasmi, di veloci convulse speranze. Avremo lontananze capovolte specchi che resero immagini rubate fiori usciti da mura ad adorarti. Saremo un solo affanno un solo oblio.

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But you will know the pleading of my smile, fixed as a wound in the millennia, I will know the dawn of yours at every dawn. I will know you as a light bud: how much you will unfold, how you will please us with slight events. Innocuous drugs, March gales; rainbowed and waxy gardens, sinecures for minds and hands soft from allergies; readings on summer dust-motes, readings on rains, among infinite rain-thorns. Sometimes Urania will split the truth before us like armored fruit: powerful skies, flights that the night of the solstice sets blazing again, gems of the farthest hates and loves, of hydrogen refulgent toil: set down here in the water of a planet through profiles of meadow-safiron, dragonflies. I shall raise my eyes to you perhaps, my mouth, for which waiting changed speech, existence. And even in the earth, tomorrow, my last sign will turn blue with starred fervors, with swift convulsive hopes. We shall have distances reversed mirrors that gave back stolen images flowers springing from walls to adore you. We shall be a single care, a single oblivion.

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Ecloga III La vendemmia

ι Autunno, presto. E il colchico sui prati e la Iuna che si fa avanti regina e il molto frutto nei notturni adyti e i ruscelli lucenti millepiedi. Cose vive, ahi, vite che ora mi pare di avere perdute. Chi, tardo, si tratterra a cantarvi? Ma in qualche luogo m'attendete, con qualche segno dell'umano, il ρΐύ limpido, al limite. Morbido fianco dell'erba, fianco di Iuna nel giorno, pace in ripresa, lend alberi, autorita e sostanza. Si, e un'ubriachezza stolta questa, non durera. Col dolce colchico e il sonno che oltre me traspare come una lata ricchissima rosa riavro anche il supremo il superfluo l'azzurro. In esso mi ripristino: basta cosi poco alia precaria anima (rifrazione che ora cade falsa, e non so la ragione) cosi poco per tornare, per essere: raggio che s'acqueta d'un cielo ove cadere.

Eclogue III Grape-Harvest

ι Autumn, soon. Meadow-saffron in the fields and moon proceeding, queenly. Much fruit in nocturnal sanctums and the brooks, shining millipedes. Living things, alas, lives that now seem lost to me. Who, late, will stay to sing of you? But somewhere you wait for me at the limit with some mark of the human, the clearest. Soft flank of grass, moon's flank in day, peace renewing, slow trees, authority and substance. Yes, it is a foolish rapture this, it will not last. With the sweet meadow-saffron and sleep which shines beyond me like a wide rich rose I will recover too the supreme the superfluous the blue. In this I renew myself: so little suffices for the precarious soul, (refraction that now falls false—I don't know why) so little needed to return, to be: ray that is content with a sky in which to fall.

II

In autunno era il tempo del grande guadagno, molto anelata vendemmia, quando esistevi, poesia: pura. Un moto, un modo, ultimo, dell'azzurro che di se si contenta e fa content! anche i vinti, i divisi. Eri, non eri: mutila in cio, piu che colpevole; tu come luna sempre oltre la selva, sempre col vano raggio pur tra la selva a spanderti. Ma ora in altre sere vai, fonte imbarbarita, in altri alvei, difetto e perdizione. Interferenze s'aprono s'appuntano ove decadde I'inarticolato cuore tuo, il tuo ritmo che la tempia fedele—lei sola—auscultava. Qui. Ma io sono immune e incolpevole: tanto oso dire. E io posso all'azzurro serbarti —solo talvolta (come all'autunno, padre, giaciglio, cibo)— all'azzurro di ierofania che ogni passione avalla, ogni informita soffoca. Madore, fumo, lume d'immagini, d'incontri, di conati

Parola d'ordine d'altri milioni d'anni, d'altri defunti eoni, triviale slogan. Noi

162

Autumn was the time of the large yield, much longed-for grape-harvest, when you existed, poetry: pure. A movement, a mode, the last, of the blue that content with itself makes even the vanquished, the divided content. You were, you were not: maimed in this, more than guilty you moonlike forever beyond the forest, forever with your vain ray shedding light even within the forest. But now you move in other evenings, barbarized spring, in other channels, defect and perdition. Interferences open point themselves where that inarticulate heart of yours declined, your rhythm sounded by the faithful forehead—it alone. Here. But I'm immune and blameless: that much I dare say. And I can preserve you for the sky —only at times (as in autumn, father, pallet, food)— in the blue of hierophany that confirms every passion, stifles every lack of form. Moisture, smoke, light of images, meetings, efforts.

Password of other millions of years, of other dead aeons, trivial slogan. We

Per la finestra nuova

Brilla la finestra del verde lungamente lungamente composto, sogno a sogno, orti o prati non so; ma quanta brina prima ch'io mi convinca, quanta neve. Verde del grano che alzi il capo e irridi tra I'incerto oro e il vuoto: tu, mia finestra, e tu, cielo, che porti a me tra placidi astri gli squillanti satelliti che il gioco umano ha lanciati, con lampi di fantascienza, a vagheggiare in orbite leggiere i colli, e li vede a pie fermo il hue sul campo arato e la vite e la luna. O mia finestra, purezza inestinguibile. Per farti spesi tutto cio che avevo. Ora, non lieto, in poverta completa, ancora tutti i tuoi doni non gusto. Ma tra poco

tutto mi darai quel che anelavo.

164

Through the New Window

It shines with green, the window, shaped for a long long time dream by dream, orchards meadows and such things; but how much frost before I am convinced, and how much snow. Green of the wheat that lifts its head and laughs between uncertain gold and emptiness: you, my window, and you, sky, that bring me —among unruffled stars—the shrilling satellites that human sport has launched with science-fiction flashes yearning in light orbits for the hills, and the ox—stockstill in the ploughed field—vine and moon see them. Oh my window, unquenchable purity. I spent, to make you, everything I had. Now, unhappy, in total poverty, I am still not savoring all your gifts. But before long you will give me everything I've longed for.

Ecloga IV Polifemo, Bolla fenomenica, Primavera IMPERATORE ADRIANO

Persone: a, Polifemo

«Dolce» fiato che muovi le nascite dal guscio, il coma, il muto; «dolce» bruma che covi il ritorno del patto convenuto; uomo, termine vago, impropria luce, uomo a cui non rispondo, salto che il piede spezza sopra il mondo. Godono i prati acqua silenzio e viole; da fiale laghi, nevi si versano. Occhio, pullus nel guscio: ho veduto nell'errare del mondo errante il sole. Mondo, termine vago, primavera che mi chiami nel tuo psicoide fioco. Ancora un poco giusto ch'io stia al gioco, stia al fiato, all'afflato, di lutea passibile cera, io, e mondo primavera. E vengo dritto, obliquo, vengo gibboso, liscio; come germe che abbonda di dente ammicco e striscio e premo alle lane onde ammanta il di le sue fetali clorofille. M'adergo, prillo, come a musicale sferza la trottola. Poi che qui tutto «musica.» Non uomo, dico, ma bolla fenomenica. Ah, domenica e sempre domenica. i66

Eclogue IV Polyphemus, Phenomenological Bubble, Spring Animula vagula blandula EMPEROR HADRIAN

Personae: a, Polyphemus

a—"Sweet" breath that moves births from the shell, the coma, the mute; "sweet" mist that hatches the return of the established pact; man, vague term, unfit light, man I don't respond to, leap which shatters the foot above the world. The meadows savor water silence and violets lakes spill from phials, snows. Eye, pullus in the shell: I have seen the sun wandering in the world's wandering. World, vague term, Spring, you call to me in your thin psychoid. It's right for me to stay with the game a little longer, stay with the breath, with the afflatus, of soft saffron wax, I, and Spring world. And I come straight, oblique, I come humped, smooth; like well-toothed seed I nod and crawl and press on wools with which day cloaks its fetal chlorophylls. I rise, spin like a top to a musical whip. Since here everything is "music.' Not man, I say, but phenomenological bubble. Ah, Sunday is always Sunday.

Le bolle fenomeniche alle mille stimolazioni variano s'incupano scintillano. Sferica e anche la speranza, anclie la sete. Abiuro dalle lettere consuete. O primavera di cocchi e di lendini, primavera di liquor, dei, suspense, «vorrei trovare parole nuove»: ma il petalo e la frangia, ma l'erba e il lembo muove, muovono al gioco i giocatori. Monadi radianti, folle, bolle a corimbi e tu tondo comunque, a tutta volta, estremo occhio di Polifemo. Po. No, qui non si dissoda, qui non si cambia testo, qui si ricade, qui frigge nel cavo fondo della vista il renitente trapano, la trista macchina, il giro viziosissimo. E qui su questo, assestandomi, giuro: io Polifemo sferico monocolo ebbro del vino d'Ismaro primavera, io donde cola, crapula, la vita (oh: vino d'Ismaro; oh: vita; oh: primavera!).

The phenomenological bubbles vary at a thousand stimulations darken sparkle. Hope too is spherical, and so is thirst. I renounce the usual literature. Oh Spring of cocci and nits, Spring of liquors, gods, suspense, "I'd like to find new words": but petal and fringe, but grass and grass-edge move, the players move to the game. Radiant monads, throngs, corymb-like bubbles and you still round, a full circle, infinite eye of Polyphemus. Po. No, here one doesn't break new ground, here one doesn't

tinker with the here one relapses, here the reluctant drill, the perverse machine, the most vicious circle sizzles in the deep socket of my sight. And here taking my stance on this, I swear: I Polyphemus, spherical one-eyed being drunk with the Spring wine of Ismarus, I from whom dribbles—debauchery—life (oh: wine of Ismarus; oh: life; oh: Spring!)

La querela sradicata dal vento (nella notte del 15 ottobre MCMLVIII)

Nel campo d'una non placabile idea, d'una sera che il vento era tutto, si, tutto, e mi premeva col suo gelo verso il piu profondo di quell'idea di quel sogno, tricosa Gordio da atterrire il filo della spada. Nel seno d'energia di quella inibizione nera che faceva Ie cose sempre piu sempre piu terra nella terra. Vedi: troppo vicine Ie mie stanze sono a te, quercia: resisti ora, sull'orlo, sta anche per tutto il mio mancare. Ti rinvenimmo attraverso la squallida bocca del giorno, rovesciata. Nel basso, empito umbrifero, plurimo, di calme e aromi che ti spiegavi fin la, sino alia fonte mai vista del fiume sino all'infanzia fantastica balbettante degli avi. Ai nostri abietti piedi tu ch'eri la vetta cui corre l'occhio e il tempo al riposo. E ora il sole allarga aride ali sul paese svuotato di te.

The Oa\ Uprooted by the Wind (the night of October 15 MCMLVIII)

In the field of an implacable idea, one evening when everything was wind, yes, everything, and with its cold it thrust me toward the lowest depths of that idea that dream, Gordian tangle to terrify the sword's edge. In the breast of energy of that black inhibition that made things always more always more in the earth earthy. See: my rooms are too near you oak: resist now, on the brink, stay despite all my failings. We found you overturned across day's squalid mouth. Brought low, shady multiple surge, of quiet and scents which you spread all the way there, as far as the river's never-glimpsed source as far as fantastic childhood stammering about ancestors. At our abject feet you who were the summit to which eye and time run to rest. And now the sun spreads dry wings above the countryside emptied of you.

Quercia, come la messe d'embrici e vetri, la dispersione per selciati ed asfalti —nostre irrite grida, irriti aneliti—, quercia umiliata ai piedi miei, di me inginocchiato invano a alzarti come si alza il padre colpito, invano prostrato ad ascoltare in te nostri in te antichissimi irriti aneliti, irriti gridi.

Oak, like the crop of roof-tiles and windows, the scattering through sidewalks and asphalt —our ineffectual groans, futile gasps—, oak humbled at my feet, as I kneel in vain to lift you as one lifts a stricken father, prostrate in vain to listen in you to our, ancient in you, vain sighs, vain groans.

Riflesso

Spesso nella morsa di gorgonici autunni ο in primavere verdi di tabe ο nell'incubo che precede il sonno —chino il capo sul povero legno, sporto il capo sul brulicante prato— ο nei sospiri ο sotto lampade astri invadenti ο in attese ρίύ estatiche ρΐύ che nausee protratte, qui sul colmo del viottolo qui sul tenero fiume che s'intarla: con ire di fanciullo ο con disfatte pause d'adulto, che tu volessi, tu, da me, perche, universa impresenza, unicita e miriade, chiesi; tu, da me, perche, semantico silenzio.

Reflection-Reflex

Often in the vise of Gorgonic Autumns or Springs green with rot or in the nightmare that precedes sleep— I bend my head above scant wood my head juts over the swarming meadow— either in sighs or under lamps encroaching stars or in waitings more ecstatic more prolonged than nausea here at the top of the path here on the soft worm-bearing stream: with childish angers or undone adult pauses, I asked what you could have wanted from me, and universal non-presence, uniqueness and multiplicity; you, from me, why, semantic silence.

E queste nubi e questi spessi monti e i linguati rivi e il sassoso sonno e l'insonnia e i sospiri e il prato come spuma come iride, solo questo da me, per me, ch'io fossi tu mi chiedevi. O nome mai saputo abbastanza mai perduto abbastanza, tenebra che s'innamora, alapa che disintegra e aggrega, tu, nell'ora che tutto sulla fatiscente anima tutto sulla bocca inetta ricadra e saro prossimo all'eco: allora almeno.

And these clouds these crowding mountains and tongued brooks and stony sleep insomnia and sighs and the meadow like foam like a rainbow, you asked only this of me, for me: that I be. Oh name never known enough never lost enough, loving dark, alapa that disintegrates and unites, you, in the hour when everything will fall again on the crumbling soul on the inept mouth and I will be near the echo: then at least.

Con quel cuore che basta

E questo, se si vuole, posso aggiungere: —La dove il fiume e un altro e gia corre il mare vicino ai tuoi seni, e si scioglie la rete la pescagione il mondo, con te fra le erbe abbondanti non munte giacevo. Amore d'erba non piu fondo che I'erba, lattice lucente, clorofilla. Vampa aurea di fiammifero cui volgere le spalle senza tema come al vento ed al mare. Ma ora ora anche il vero amore tarda talvolta a farmi vivo. Si lasci che io dica «io.» Quanto e difficile: io. Ora: «io-sono» e questa emorragia . . . Ti prego, fammi un segno, lasciati scorgere: tu tenera come onda, rutila pescagione, rete, foce, solco di mare, succo. Perche posso giurarlo, posso a fatica scavarlo, ma scavarlo da me, questo che oggi non vuole dirsi: con te, io ero.

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With That Heart Which Suffices

And this, if you like, I can add: —There where the river is another and already the sea runs close to your breasts, and the net the catch the world dissolve, I stretched out with you among lush unmilked grasses. Love of grass no deeper than the grass, luminous lattice, chlorophyll. Gold match-blaze on which to turn your back without fear as to wind and sea. But now now even true love delays sometimes to bring me alive. Permit me to say "I." How difficult "I" is. Now: "I-am" is this hemorrhage . . . Give me a sign, I beg, let yourself be seen: you tender as a wave, catch of fish sparkles, net, river-mouth, sea-furrow, sap. For I can swear it, can with difficulty unearth it, but unearth it from myself, this thing that today doesn't want to get said: with you, I was.

Energia divenivo, statura anima attenzione degna di misurarsi ai cieli. Notti di resine, di corpi felici. Cieli vigna abbondante, non munta, profumo. Bevevo alia tua coppa, Urania. Corpi sommi. Vi vedevo scorrere veloci oltre il campo del vedere. Scorrevi mare, notte, fresca mirra. Posso giurarlo: io ero. Senza nulla disperdere, nulla offuscare, nulla ferire. Senza ρΐύ, ma con solo quel cuore che basta. Beveva il mare; suggeva ai tuoi seni.

I became energy, stature soul attention fit to measure itself against skies. Nights of resins, happy bodies. Skies fertile vineyard, not milked dry, scent. I drank from your cup, Urania. Supreme bodies. I saw you run swiftly beyond the field of vision. You ran through sea, night, fresh myrrh. I can swear it: I was. Without wasting anything, obscuring anything, wounding anything. With nothing more, only that heart which suffices. The sea went on drinking, sucking at your breasts.

Cost siamo

Dicevano, a Padova, «anch'io» gli amici «l'ho conosciuto». E c'era il romorio d'un'acqua sporca prossima, e d'una sporca fabbrica: stupende nel silenzio. Perche era notte. «Anch'io l'ho conosciuto.» Vitalmente ho pensato a te che ora non sei ne soggetto ne oggetto ne lingua usuale ne gergo ne quiete ne movimento neppure il ne che negava e che per quanto s'affondino gli occhi miei dentro la sua cruna mai ti nega abbastanza E cosi sia: ma io credo con altrettanta forza in tutto il mio nulla, percio non ti ho perduto o, piu ti perdo e piu ti perdi, ρΐύ mi sei simile, piu m'avvicini.

That's How We Are

They said, the friends at Padua, "I knew him too." And there was nearby the rumble of dirty water, and of a dirty factory: stupendous in the silence. Because it was night. "I knew him too." Keenly I thought of you who now are neither subject nor object not usual speech nor jargon not quiet nor motion not even the not that negated— and for all that my eyes pierce its needle eye— never negates you enough So be it: but I believe with equal force in all my nothingness, therefore I haven't lost you or, the more I lose you and you lose yourself, the more like me you are, the closer you come.

Ecloga V "Lorna, gemma delle colline" (da un'epigrafe) Formosam resonare doces Amaryllida silvas

Diffuse oltre oltre il firmamento degl'inverni con mozza lucente armonia vi rivedeva a onde la mia memoria rizzata divinante, onde balsamo e fede, fede, dorsi rigogliosi di neve. Diffuse oltre oltre l'aflianno della primavera, balza che liberandosi l'inerme e caldo occhio favorisce «con miglior corso e con migliore stella»: oggi colline fitte come petali nella rosa, onde di maggio, soli impigliati in frange e lappole, verdicante sapere che tutto insegna riflette stabilisce. «Lorna, gemma delle colline» occhio mio eterno intramontata vigilia del vero del veemente dell'acuto, vigilia dilatata sull'amore di selvatici giovani capelli, bruciore di dolci volti, mani che schermiscono e adorano un tenero corpo nel nido di maggio.

Eclogue V "Lorna, gem of the hills" (from an epigraph) Formosam resonare doces Amaryllida silvas

Diffused beyond beyond the firmament of winters with cropped shining harmony my risen memory, divining, saw you again in waves, waves balm and faith, faith, ridges luxuriant with snow. Diffused beyond beyond spring's toil, ledge that freeing itself favors the unarmed and warm eye "with more propitious course, and with a more propitious . >> star, today hills thick as petals on a rose, waves of May, suns tangled in fringes and burrs, greening knowledge that teaches reflects determines everything. "Lorna, gem of the hills" my eternal eye vigil that never sets of the true the vehement the keen, vigil spread over the love of wild young hair, smarting of gentle faces, hands that screen and adore a tender body in May's nest.

«Gemma delle colline»: cui con furia e terrore con indugio ed inerzia conducevo i miei anni: cui chiedevo. Chiedevo: dispersione, cura ed incuria, riottosa pienezza, avarizia, io: e tu, gemma, I'arida e pura morte —la favolosa vita— a me davanti stendevi, a fuoco, a punto, cosf che non la miseria non I'odio mi distraeva, i maligni messeri i siri i golem i tarocchi, non il Baffetto non il Baffone non il Crapone non il Re dei Petroli o dei Rosoli non il Re dei Turiboli, «non avea catenella, non corona»: minimi, in te Lorna, si spettralizzavano, minime erano le loro frasi, le loro stragi, minima la strage di me ch'essi facevano.

i86

"Gem of the hills": to which with fury and terror delay and inertia I brought my years: from which I sought. I sought: dispersion, care and neglect, unruly fullness, greed, I: and you, gem, pure arid death —fabulous life— stretched out before me, focused, exactly, so that neither misery nor hate distracted me, nor the evil sires the sovereigns golems tarocchi, not the Baffetto not the Baffone not the Crapone not the King of the Petroleums of the Rosolios not the King of the Censers, "there was no chain or crown" their spectral doings were minimal in you, Lorna, minimal their phrases, massacres, minimal the way they slaughtered me.

104 Gemma delle colline, mio mirifico occhio di mosca, icosaedro, arnia porosa d'umana sostanza, frutto tu stessa, nel battagliante meriggio nella linfata sera: la bevanda da te scaturisce e la bella, da te ogni storia trae la sua fresca interezza, le avene hanno corde vocali e pensieri e ali senz'ombra, e per te della bella risuona Testate sempre discente sempre affollata di brezze; e ogni fioca paralisi ogni aberrata biologale frana, di nuovo, rursus nel sole accesissimo, altissimo, rursus riassumi, intimando lontananza esilita arcaicita alTorizzonte, al limite. Apprenderai, selva ondata, tinnito di amicizie e consensi, di labbra vibratili, lei plurima come gli steli le foglie le proliferazioni tue nei suoi raggi: orbita, vigna di Renzo, carte du tendre, labirinto di rugiade, cicalio di mille perpetue fami, santi stupri delTocchio, delTocchio-vetta vitale, irraggiungibile, unicizzante ed unico guardare.

Gem of the hills, my marvellous fly's eye, icosahedron, porous hive of human substance, you—a fruit yourself, in the warring afternoon in the evening rich with sap the drinkable gushes from you, and lovely womanhood, from you every story draws its fresh wholeness, the oats have vocal chords, and thoughts and unshadowed wings, for you summer resounds with lovely womanhood always learning always thronged with breezes; and every faint paralysis every aberrant bio-sacral cave-in again, rursus in the most burning, the highest sun, rursus you synthesize, commanding distance thinness the archaic on the horizon, at the boundary. You will learn, waving woods, the ringing of friendships and consents, of vibrating lips, she multiple as stems, leaves, your proliferations in its beams: orbit, Renzo's vineyard, carte du tendre, labyrinth of dews, murmur of a thousand endless hungers, holy rapes of the eye, of the eye-summit vital, unreachable, unifying and one-seeing.

Ecloga VI Ravenna, Macromolecola, Ideologie Buio s'interpone a togliermi, vitrea stasi mi sloga dall'amico soffio, soffice, delle tarde nevi primaverili ? A Jesolo un sole unico su nevi marine e deserti di spiagge vespertine di marzo via ci furono, viatico, fino al primo struggente pimento della notte; fummo un amore fummo un'armonia violenta fummo il il vero I'offerta, quanto d'umano puo dare questo secolo di rictus, d'infarto, di fissile psiche. Fummo la neve piu bella il mare piii nevoso il pino piu raggiante di rami fummo I'aroma del pinoso mare. Nulla ci vincera, nulla, se questo davanti al petto, nel pugno terremo, se tutto questo sara nostra lancia, se nelle coazioni nei compromessi nelle reticenze dei sostrati che della vita i malcerti succhi ci somministrano, se oltre i chimici idoli, oltre le spirali macromolecolari, ostinatamente filtreremo:

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Eclogue VI Ravenna, Macromolecule, Ideologies

Does dark interpose to cut me off glassy stasis dislocate me from the friendly breath, soft, of late spring snows? At Jesolo a unique sun over sea snows and deserts of twilight March beaches they were the way for us, viaticum, up to the first subtle aroma of night; we were a love we were a violent harmony we were the most the true the offering, as much of the human as this century of rictus, of infarct, of fissionable psyche can provide. We were the loveliest snow and snowiest sea the pine most splendid in boughs, we were the aroma of piney sea. Nothing shall conquer us, nothing, if we hold this before our breasts, in our fists, if all this is our lance, if in the coercions in the compromises in the reticences of the substrata which life's uncertain humors administer to us, if beyond the chemical idols, beyond the macromolecular spirals, we filter stubbornly:

noi fede, noi amore, che incalza il senza-fine-inerte e Io stimola su al significato che ancora non respira che ancora non e tendine, non sangue. Fino a te un varco sempre mi sara aperto in ogni incubo in ogni inibizione, fino a me sempre tu potrai toccare, essere, dire: solo che un poco filtri la mente oltre, stilli oltre, colma resina. Jesolo e profumo di neve ma Ravenna e l'eredita inesausta dell'amore: adriatico e il nome del nostro amore. Fra relitti e fatica zampeggianti sulla ben sicura soffocazione sulla satolla terrena mandibola, tra livellati coacervi tra colloidali depressioni che tu non vedevi, tu libera, tra occhiute gemme iridi di pietrischi collane per ogni istante nostro per la tua voce vagante narrante, su quel mare di marzo mare di scorie nascite delizie mare d'azzurro semifossile febbricitante fabbro d'organismi, su quella sabbia che fu prodiga di conchiglie e miraggi alia tua dolce mano cogliente —e fu madre, col mare dalle animose viscere, madre di tanto amore—

we, faith; we, love; pursuing the endlessly-inert stimulating it up toward meaning that does not yet breathe that is not yet tendon, not yet blood. A way will always be open to me as far as you in every nightmare every inhibition, you will always be able to touch, to be, to say as far as me: if only the mind filters a bit beyond, distills beyond, brimming resin. Jesolo is snow-perfume but Ravenna is the unexhausted legacy of love: Adriatic is our love's name. Groping among wreckage and toil on the quite secure suffocation on the sated earthy mandible, among levelled coacervations among colloidal depressions you didn't see, you free, among eyed jewels rainbowed stony fragments, necklaces for each of our moments for your voice rambling narrating, on that sea of March sea of debris births delights sea of semifossil blue feverish artificer of organisms, on that sand prodigal of shells and mirages to your gentle gathering hand— and it was mother, with the sea of spirited viscera, mother of so much love—

Iottai con te, e pini all'orizzonte furono e intorno al puro pino all'aroma adriatico del nostro amore. Credi. Come io contro tutti i silenzi credero: solo, tu mai non credere ad alcun mio silenzio ad alcuna mia assenza ad alcuno mio non-poema. Credi: che nulla mai ci spende nulla ci ruba se un sospiro —basta un sospiro— solco fomento cielo c'invade, quel sospiro forte che turba e orienta la sapienza insipiente: reticolati torri e spirali macromolecolari babeli esili innumeri circuiti agguati triboli ove, vinta, la piaga la distonia la tomba, vinto, il drago letargico arde in io-sono anche se sotto il moggio, anche se nel pozzo, in malebolge, si fa noi: noi sospiro a gridare il sospiro. E Ravenna di tenebre e di vento adriatico, che unisce ai cascami melmosi dei manti agli attoniti salini re Ie speranze in questa melma in questo allume in questo sanguigno efiettuoso giustiziante

I struggled with you, and there were pines on the horizon and all around the pure pine in the Adriatic aroma of our love. Believe. As I will believe in the face of all silences: only, never believe any of my silences any of my absences any of my non-poems. Believe: that nothing ever depletes us nothing robs us if a sigh— a sigh suffices— furrow balm sky invades us, that deep sigh that troubles and orients unwise wisdom: networks towers and macromolecular spirals slim Babels countless circuits ambushes thorn-troubles in which, conquered, the wound the dystonia the tomb conquered, the lethargic dragon burns in I-I am even if under the bushel even if in the pit, in Malebolge it turns into us: us a sigh screaming the sigh. And Ravenna of darkness and Adriatic wind, that joins hopes to the muddy folds of cloaks to the astonished salty kings in this mud in this alum in this bloody effecting justice-bearing

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impennarsi dialettico dell'essere, e Ravenna riflesso di re, mirra e aiola di resine, che crede se i suoi spazi i suoi amori riflessi macromolecolari, Ravenna coi suoi mari fantasma, essa, che corre al mare—abbandonata—, che s'avvalla col poeta-nume coi pini-numi e i mari presa nelle reti di santi pavimenti, sara midollo utero luce esemplifica: sara il nevoso marzo che tra i pini s'ammalia a mutazioni dei liquidi infiniti palinsesti che azzurri azzurri si spogliano d'ogni mistero, che ogni mistero tendono nudo, ogni pesce ogni onda ogni vita che fu da vita, poi che leggersi sanno sul fondo vivo del nostro giorno.

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dialectic rearing up of being, and Ravenna reflection of kings myrrh and flower-bed of resins, that believes itself its spaces its loves to be macromolecular reflexes, Ravenna, with its phantom seas, that runs to the sea—abandoned— that sinks with the numen-poet with the numen-pines and seas, caught in the nets of holy floors, will be marrow womb light exemplifying: it will be snowy March bewitching itself among the pines in mutations of infinite liquid palimpsests which, intensely blue, strip themselves of every mystery, offering—naked—every mystery every fish every wave every life that stemmed from life, now that they can read themselves on the living depths of our day.

Ecloga IX Scolastica Persone: a, b

b—^Per spazi, per gradini come spazi cadenti verso i miei piedi dal diffuso sonno delle foschie, come di sogni popolato (ed sale di libere uve, Industrie animali, programmata efficienza, vittorie), fiume sempre in dialogato transito fiume tra poco amazonico, ora qui ai seni del Montello verso me vieni leggiero convinto, ne ti rapisce I'orizzonte, ma a gioire d'autunnali tregue tra gialle effusioni di foglie tra dorsi disposti aH'oblio sfumi con le ore, torni con le ore, amico indifferente ristoro e distrazione nell'inizio decisa. questa, in tanto ingiusta posizione, I'ora, I'inizio? Domani per i mille sentieri nei mattini gia freddi, sar brina formiche e bambini: e nella scuola che vive di quanto sa bearla I'infinita corrente, nella scuola povera e nuova tra candore di fogli, nel Montello, cesto muscoso, boccio di funghi multicolori, di prati, di querce clamorose 198

Eclogue IX Scholastics

Personae: a, b

b—Through spaces, through stairs like spaces falling toward my feet from the diffused sleep of mists, populated as with dreams (and it is salt of free grapes, animal industries, programmed efficiency, victories), river always in dialogued transit river soon Amazonic, now here at the Montello's inlets you come toward me lightly convinced, nor does the horizon carry you off, but delighting in autumnal truces among yellow effusions of leaves among slopes inclined to oblivion you fade with the hours, return with the hours, indifferent friend relief and distraction decided in the beginning. a—Is this, in such an out-of-phase position, the hour, the beginning? Tomorrow through the thousand paths in mornings already cold there will be hoar-frost ants and children: and in the school that lives by the blessing the endless current brings, in the poor new school among brilliance of leaves, in the Montello, mossy clump, bud of multicolored mushrooms, of meadows, of oaks noisy

per uccelli e per venti, povera e nuova tu stessa, starai. Ma che dirai a quelle anime di brina, di arnia, a quel festante grappolo che intorno a] tuo cuore s'ingloba, e stordisce di curiose energie la pur schiusa aula che da sul mai stabile greto? Sorgono i bimbi da lane e stupori d'autunno, scendono dalla casa cui Tape e la dalia fanno lustro sempre piu dimesso, e il sole aiuta il pane e la pioggia aiuta il bere. Tutto gioca con loro, ο pioggia ο sole ο ramo ο nano ο vetro, e per loro il gran fiume d'azzurro si ravviva i capelli leggiadri. Vengono i bimbi, ma nessuna parola troveranno, nessun segno del vero. Mentiremo. Mentira il mondo in noi, anche in te, pura. Forse per te di tenui note si costelleranno odorati quaderni; a domande, a pastelli, a scritture vergini, verginalmente darai forza. Necessita e finzione: che nulla, nulla dal profondo autunno, dall'alto cielo verra, nessun maestro; nessun giusto rito comincera domani sulla terra. b—Io forse insegno a tollerare, a chiedere cio che illumina piu nel chiederlo che nella risposta.

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with birds and winds, you will be there, poor and new yourself. But what will you say to those spirits of hoar-frost, of beehive, to that jubilant grape-cluster that englobes your heart, and stuns with curious energies even the open schoolroom that looks out onto the shifting river-bed ? The little children rise from wools and stupors of autumn, come down from the house to which bee and dahlia give a more and more subdued lustre and sun helps the bread and rain helps the drinking. Everything plays with them, either rain or sun or branch or dwarf or glass, and through them the broad river of blue revives its graceful hair. The children come, but they will find no word, no sign of truth. We will lie. The world will lie in us, even in you, pure one. Perhaps for you fragrant notebooks will be starred with fine notes; virginally you will give strength to questions, to pastels, to virgin writings. Necessity and pretence: for nothing, nothing will come from deep autumn, from the deep sky, no teacher; no just rite will begin tomorrow on the earth. b—I teach perhaps to tolerate, to seek that which illuminates more in the asking than in the answer.

a—Tu forse insegni perche una risposta hai generate in te. Sei poco, un suono solo, una vocale, un nai, un si; da fare grande come l'iddio, un mondo tutto di microcristalline affermative sillabe. Oh, una sola risposta: e tutto insegnero, sed tantum die verbo. b—Riudrai Ie voci del profondo autunno, del magistero, del pozzo profondo, se sapesti udirle nel primo giorno, se sapesti che primo e ogni giorno. Non essere stanco di durare tra Ie albe, esse faranno verita della nostra menzogna. Come a Iui che insegnava agli operai quanto sia nitido il segno sul foglio ed il taglio nel legno; vale ogni segno, ogni taglio, estinzione del troppo e del vano, ombra aggredita. A lui, tuo padre. Senti che da sotto di tutto se stesso ti regge; sentine tutto il respiro: non e, nemmeno nella morte, ancora non e faticoso. a—Oh dalle mille sovrapposizioni distinguimi ancora, segnami, non lasciarmi andare in mille onde incomposte ineroiche, non sono trecciuto fiume e nemmeno ruscello in cui almeno la talpa confidi. Eppure tra questa che seppi menzogna, nella vita, rabbioso m'attardo.

Λ—You teach perhaps because you have generated

an answer in yourself. You are little, only a sound, a vowel, a nai, a yes; from acting big as the god, a world wholly of micro-crystalline affirmative syllables. Oh, a single answer: and I will teach everything, sed tantum die verbo. b—You will hear again the voices of deep autumn, of teaching, of the deep well, if you knew how to hear them on the first day, if you knew that each day is the first. Don't be tired of enduring between dawns, they will make truth of our lie. As to him who taught the workmen how bright is the mark on the leaf, the cut in wood: every sign counts, every cut, extinction of the too much and the vain, assaulted shadow. To him, your father. Hear that from below everything he supports you; feel all its breath: it isn't, even in death, it still isn't wearisome. a—Oh still distinguish me from the thousand superimpositions, mark me, don't let me go in a thousand formless unheroic waves, I'm not braided river, not even rivulet in which at least the mole might trust. And still I linger, angry, in this which I knew to be a lie, in life.

Ecco, come se verso la brughiera che e eletta dalla lepre e che il pioppo circonda e vuole a ombroso letto ai riposi della sua corona che perisce nei giorni, come se in questo andare che non ha ancora senso, ma gia rifiuta la paura rifiuta il silenzio—ah, individuata e subito confusa legge, bruto plasma, densissima lingua— io sia colui che «io» «io» dire, almeno, puo, nel vuoto, puo, nell'immenso scotoma, «io», piu che la pietra, la foglia, il cielo, «io»: e, in questo, essere indizio, dono, dono tuo, agli altri donate. Prime elemento di una proposiziene, morula imprecisa, persa ancora in bui uteri, promessa. Prime elemento, stacco d'invischiato vole, soffio sugli occhi—anche dei bimbi—rischio di chi fu piaga e piaga ancora, ma piu scopre nel sue tremare I'estinaziene, la brace, I'ala di mosca superstite; e guarda, tondo, terpido scrigno di sguardi, anche se ancora non sa ne amore insegnamente.

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See, it's as though toward the moor chosen by the hare and which surrounds the poplar and wants as a shady bed for the repose of its crown which perishes day by day, it's as though in this going which does not yet make sense, but already rejects fear rejects silence—ah, individualized and suddenly confused law, brute plasma, thickest language— it's as though I were the one who can at least say "I" "I," in the void, can, in the immense scotoma, "I," more than stone, leaf, sky, "I": and, in this, be sign, gift, your gift, given to the others. First element of a proposition, imprecise morula, still lost in dark wombs, promise. First element, detachment from entangling flight, breath of air on the eyes—of the children too—risk of the one who was a wound and is still a wound, but discovers more in his trembling the stubbornness, the embers, wing of surviving fly; and he looks, rounded, dull casket of glances, even though he still knows neither loving nor teaching.

Epilogo Appunti per un'Ecloga

Persone: a, b, c, d, e

b-( materia, macchie, pseudo-braille) a-L'anancasma che si chiama vita: macchie, macchine, muscoli, ceneri, spasmi, tu il corso di quell a partita in cui perdesti te stesso e il tuo stesso perderti

c-(codici vari per tutti i suoni) a-Non tesi, terra, energia, spirito nemmeno, non carme civile 0 intimo. In chiave di tuoco 0 di tenebre. Ma retina 0 reticolo, rna poi trama ed omento: convenzione prima in cui tutto si rita ragione.

d-( Catena di dattili, spondei etc.)

a-O quale e quanta in quella viva stella pur vinse, quale e quanto si sospinse oltre Ie soglie della sua stessa luce; al di Ii del silenzio quale e quanto t'induce! e-(simboli matematici etc.) a-Integrando, suI limite, sospinti solo minimamente sopra il suolo dell'impossibi1e, impossibi1mente qui, e pure qui a dire l'impossibi1e e i1 possibi1e. E reversibilmente Avverbio in «mente», 1attea sicurezza

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Epilogue

Notes for an Eclogue

Personae: a, b, c, d, e

b—(matter, spots, pseudo-braille)

a—The anancasma we call life: spots, machines, muscles, ashes, spasms, was the way that game went in which you lost yourself and your losing of yourself c—(various codes for all the sounds)

a—Not thesis, earth, energy, nor even spirit, not civil or intimate ode. In key of fire or darkness. But retina or reticulum, but then weave and omentum: first convention in which everything is remade into reason. d—(Chain of dactyls, spondees, etc.)

a—O quality and quantity in that living star also conquered, quality and quantity hung beyond the thresholds of its own light; quality and quantity thrust you on the other side of silence! e—(mathematical symbols, etc.)

a—Integrating, at the limit, thrust only minimally above the soil of the impossible, impossibly here, and also here to say the impossible and the possible. And reversibly Adverb ending in "mente," milky security

Part IV

From La Belta (/96/-/967)

La perfezione della neve

Quante perfezioni, quante quante totalita. Pungendo aggiunge. E poi astrazioni astrifkazioni formulazione d'astri assideramento, attraverso sidera e coelos assideramenti assimilazioni— nel perfezionato procederei piu in la del grande abbaglio, del pieno e del vuoto, ricercherei procedimenti risaltando, evitando dubbiose tenebrose; saprei direi. Ma come ci sofifolce, quanta e l'uberta nivale come vale: a valle del mattino a valle a monte della luce plurifonte. Mi sono messo di mezzo a questo movimento-mancamento radiale ahi il primo brivido del salire, del capire, partono in ordine, sfidano: ecco tutto. E la tua consolazione insolazione e la mia, frutto di quest'inverno, alienate, alleate, sui vertici vitrei del sempre, sui margini nevati del mai-mai-non-lasciai-andare, e la stella che brucia nel suo riccio e la castagna tratta dal ghiaccio e—tutto—e tutto-eros, tutto-lib. Iiberta nel laccio nell'abbraccio mi sta: ci sta, ci sta all'invito, sta nel programma, nella faccenda. Un sorriso, vero? E la vi(ta) (id-vid) quella di cui non si puo nulla, non ipotizzare, sulla soglia si fa (accarezzare?). Evoe lungo i ghiacci e Ie colture dei colori e i rassicurati lavori degli ori. Pronto. A chi parlo? Riallacciare.

The Perfection of the Snow

How many perfections, how many how many totalities. Stinging it adds. And then abstractions astrifications astral formulations star-chill, across sidera and coelos star-chills assimilations— I would proceed in the perfected beyond the blinding dazzle, of the full and the empty, I would search out proceedings standing out, avoiding the doubtful the dark; I'd know I'd say. But how it enriches us, how great is the snowy abundance how much it is worth: at the foot of morning at the foot at the summit of many-springed light. I involved myself in the middle of this radial movementfain tness alas the first shiver of ascending, of understanding, they fall into marching-order, they challenge: that's all. And your consolation insulation and my own, fruit of this winter, trained, united, on the glassy summits of forever, on the snow-white edges of never-never-did-I-let-go, and the star burning in its husk and the chestnut pulled from the ice and—and all eros, all lib. liberty in the snare it's all there in my embrace: it goes along, it goes along with the invitation, the program, the whole affair. A smile, right? And the li(fe) (id-vid) the thing you can do nothing about, can't hypothesize about, it gets (caressed?) on the threshold. Evoe along the ice and the cultures of colors and the reassured workings of golds. Hello. Who's speaking? Hang up.

E sono pronto, in fase d'immortale, per uno sketch-idea della neve, per un suo guizzo. Pronto. Alia, della perfetta. «Ε tutto, potete and are.»

And I'm ready, in an immortal phase, for a sketch-idea of snow, for one of its flickerings. Hello. To the, of the perfect. "That's all, you may go."

Si ancora la neve «Ti piace essere venuto a questo mondo?» Bamb.: «SI, perche, c'e la STANDA.»

Che sara della neve che sara di noi? Una curva sul ghiaccio e poi e poi . . . ma i pini, i pini tutti uscenti alia neve, e fin l'ultima eta circondata da pini. Sic et simpliciter? E perche si e—il mondo pinoso il mondo nevoso— perche si e fatto bambucci-ucci, odore di cristianucci, perche si e fatto noi, roba per noi? E questo valere in persona ed ex-persona un solo possibile ed ex-possibile ? Holderlin: «siamo un segno senza significato»: ma dove Ie due serie entrano in contatto? Ma e vero? E che sara di noi? E tu perche, perche tu ? E perche e che fanno i grandi oggetti e tutte Ie cose-cause e il radiante e il radioso? Il nucleo stellare la in fondo alia curva di ghiaccio, versi inventive calligrammi ricchezze, si, ma che sara della neve dei pini di quello che non sta e sta la, in fondo? Non c e noi eppure la neve si affisa a noi e quello che scotta e l'immancabilmente evaso ο morto evasa ο morta.

Yes, the Snow Again "Are you glad you came into this world?" Child: "Yes, because there's the 5 and 10."

What will happen to the snow what will happen to us ? A curve on the ice and then and then . . . but the pines, the pines all emerging to meet the snow, and until the last age surrounded by pines. Sic et simpliciter? And why is it—the piney world the snowy world— and why has the world become tiny totty-wotties, odor of human tots why has it become us, stuff for us? And this having value as a person and ex-person a single possible and ex-possible ? Holderlin: "we are a sign without interpretation": but where do the two series come into contact? But is it true? And what will happen to us? And you why, why you? And why and what do the big objects do and all the things-causes the radiant and the shining? The stellar nucleus there at the end of the ice-curve, verses inventions calligrams riches, yes, but what will happen to the snow to the pines to that which isn't and is there, way down ? There is no us and yet the snow stares at us and the thing that scalds and the unavoidably fugitive or dead fugitive or dead.

Buona neve, buone ombre, glissate glissate. Ma c'e chi non si stanca di riavviticchiarsi graffignare sgranocchiare solleticare, di scoiattohzzare le scene che abbiamo pronte, non si stanca di riassestarsi —I'ho, sempre, molto, saputo— al luogo al bello al bel modulo a cieli arcaici aciduli come slambrot cimbrici al seminato d'immagini all'ingorgo di tenebrelle e stelle edelweiss al tutto ch'e tutto bianco tutto nobile: e la volpazza di gran coda e I'autobus quello rosso sul campo nevato. Biancaneve biancosole biancume del mio vecchio io. Ma presto i bambucci-ucci vanno al grande magazzino —ai piedi della grande selva— dove c'e pappa bonissima e a maraviglia per voi bimbi bambi con diritto e programma di pappa, per tutti ferocemente tutti, voi (sniff sniff gnam gnam yum yum slurp slurp: perche sempre si continui r«umbra fuimus fumo e fumetto»): ma qui ahi colorini piti o meno truffaldini plasmon nipiol auxol lustrine e figurine piu o meno truffaldine: meglio la, sottomano nevata sottofelce nevata . . . O luna, ormai, e perfino magnolia e perfino cometa di neve in afflusso, la neve. Ma che sara di noi? Che sara della neve, del giardino che sara del libero arbitrio e del destino e di chi ha perso nella neve il cammino

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Good snow, good shadows—slide slide. Please. But there are those who don't tire of clinging again of snitching munching tickling squirreling the scenes we have ready, who never tire of readjusting —I've always been well aware of it— to the place to the lovely to the lovely pattern to archaic skies acidulous as Cimbric gibberish to the seed-bed of images to the blocking of small darknesses and edelweiss stars to everything that's all white all noble: and the nasty fox with the big tail and the bus the red one on a snowy field. Snow-white sun-white white mass of my old me. But soon the tiny totty-wotties go to the big 5 and 10 —at the foot of the big woods— where you find absolutely delicious pap for you children babies with pap rightly on your program, for everyone fiercely everyone, you (sniff sniff gnam gnam yum yum slurp slurp: so that the "umbra fuimus fumo e fumetto" may always continue): but here alas pretty colors more or less tricky plasmon nipiol auxol sequins and figurines more or less tricky better there, underhand fallen-snow underfern fallen-snow . . . Oh moon, now, and even magnolia and even the swirling snow-comet, the snow. But what will happen to us ? What will happen to the snow, the garden, what will happen to free will and destiny and to those who have lost their way in the snow

(e la neve saliva saliva—e lei moriva) ? E che si dice la nella vita? E che messaggi ha la fonte di messaggi ? Ed esiste la fonte, o non sono che io-tu-questi-quaggiii questi cloffete clocchete ch ch piu che incomunicante scomunicato tutti scomunicati ? Eppure negli alti livelli sopra il coma e il semicoma e il limine si brusisce e si ronza e si cicala-cikola —ancora—per una minima o semiminima biscroma semibiscroma nanobiscroma cose e cosine scienze lingue e profezie cronaca bianca nera azzurra di stimoli anime e libido e cupido e la loro prestidigitazione finissima; e cosi, scoiattoli afrori e fiordineve in frescura e «acqua che devia si dispera si scioglie s'allontana» oltre il grande magazzino ai piedi della selva dove i bambucci piluccano zizzole . . . E le falci e le mezzelune e i martelli e le croci e i designs-disegni e la nube filata di zucchero che alia psiche ne viene? E la tradizione tramanda tramanda fa passamano? E I'avanguardia ha trovato, ha trovato? E dove il fru-fruire dei fruitori nel truogolo nel buio bugliolo nel disincanto, dove, invece, I'entusiasmo I'empireirsi I'incanto?

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(and the snow rose rose and she was dying) ? And what are they saying there in life? What messages does the source of messages have? And does the source exist, or is it only I-you-these down here these clippety cloppety cl cl more than non-communicating excommunicated everyone excommunicated ? And yet on the high levels above the coma and the semi-coma and the threshold there is a rustling and buzzing and cicada-chatter —still—for a minim or semi-minim demisemiquaver semidemisemiquaver minisemidemiquaver things and thingies sciences languages and prophecies white black blue news of stimuli souls and gods, libido and greed and their very subtle sleight of hand; that's how it is, squirrels smells and snowdrops in coolness and "water that swerves despairs dissolves wanders off" beyond the big store at the foot of the forest where tiny tots pick jujubes . . . And the sickles and crescents and hammers and crosses and designs-drawings and the cloud of spun sugar that comes from them to the psyche ? And does tradition transmit transmit pass from hand to hand ? And has the avant-garde found, found ? And where is the con-consuming of the consumers in the trough the dark slop-bucket the disenchantment; where, instead, is the enthusiasm the rising to the Empyrean the ecstasy?

Che si dice nella vita, la da quelle parti la in parte; che si cova si sbuccia si spampana in quel poco in quel fioco dentro la nocciolina dentro la mandorletta? E i mille dentini che la minano? E il pino. E i pini-ini-ini per profili e profili mai scissi mai cuciti ini-ini a fianco davanti dietro I'eterno I'esterno I'interno (il paesaggio) dietro davanti da tutti i lati, i pini come stanno, stanno bene? Detto alia neve: «Non mi abbandonerai mai, vero?» E una pinzetta, ora, una grafietta.

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What are they saying up there in life, there from those parts there in part; what is being hatched peeled opened up in that little in that dimness inside the small nut inside the small almond ? And the thousand milk-teeth that gnaw it? And the pine-tree. And the pines-ines-ines by profiles and profiles never cleft never sewed ines-ines at the side in front behind the eternal the external the internal (the landscape) behind before on all sides, the pines how are they, are they all right? Said to the snow: "You'll never abandon me, right?" And small pincers, now, a small clamp.

Alia stagione

ι Inanellatamente e in convergenza pura e il fatto stagionale. Questa perla perlifera, sistema ed argomento qui, tutto intorno al qui, ottimo. E poi fare cenno alia matta, alia storia-storiella e alia fa-favola, femmine balbe, sorelle. Se ne va, te ne vai; oh stagione. Non sei la stagione, non sapevo. II E ti chiudi nei tuoi grandi colori e i colori nelle grandi ombre e porti via te stessa e me e non-me nell'alta involuzione pregio di un silenzio: cui s'appone l'ardore di un rumore fragilissimo ο il cammino di una madre-mamma tra Ie dalie e i crisantemi lacunosi leggermente imprecisi e scalpito d'animaletti con carrettelle e sistri appena in incidenza quasi per una svista. E sei l'invitante e obbedisci al goduto invito, me e non-me e non-noi. La mami-madre la sul versante ha una forbicina d'argento. La sul versante opposto mi e lecito decidere l'araldizzata minutaglia—quanta amicizia— che s'iscrive al patito, al passibile, in un ritorno vero. Decoro, decor, scena da cui, su via su via: l'alito e l'invito alio scarnito convolvolo alia zucca alia fragola,

Tο the Season

ι In endless rings and in pure convergence is the seasonal fact. This pearl-bearing pearl, system and subject here, all around the here, excellent. And then an allusion to the Joker, to the story-fib and to the fa-fable, stammering women, sisters. It vanishes, you vanish; oh season. You aren't the season, I didn't know. II And you close yourself in your large colors and the colors in large shadows and carry away yourself and me and non-me in the high involution value of a silence: to which is fixed the fervor of a most fragile noise or the walking of a mother-mama between dahlias and chrysanthemums full of lightly imprecise gaps and thudding feet of little animals with barrows and rattles hardly in incidence almost by mistake. And you are the inviter and obey the welcome invitation, me and not-me and not-us. The momma-mother there on the slope has a small silver earwig. There on the opposite slope I'm allowed to decide the heraldic frippery—how much friendship— which inscribes itself on the suffered, the sufferable, in a real return. Decorum, decor, scene from which, up and away away: breath and invitation to the thin bindweed the pumpkin the strawberry,

a quanta consumarsi ad un tessuto amava, tessuto e tensione che si ritira e nel ritirarsi lascia grandi se me stesso non-me e voi vivi al superlativo—che pingui, che quiete— morti al superlativo mummi-mummie-muschi e me e non-me e voi nell'inclusione in grandi colori e i colori in grandi ombre beatitudine Gia fu beato questo ritirarsi III Gia fu beato, la fu beato, grande beatitudine in circospezione ο in un'altra espansione ρΐύ accorta e difficile in vasi e valli perlifere in silenzio esclusivo perlifero. Interpretare questa parsimonia questo sonno. Riferirsi alia grama deiezione, ad un pomo ad un fico a uno spino. Dire, molte cose, di stagione, usando Tinfinito: tante dolcezze. Ma durano al becco felice all'ala pulita all'occhio all'ingegno dell'augello? Difendere quella cruna quel grimaldello quel mulinello. Bene fosti e ben sei: ma il proposito vano e il vano amore dove compenso e come? Dal tessuto foglioso delle tue chiome dalle calde simbiosi dagli aiuti dai cibi. Esser beato—contro me—mi prescrivi anche se e malfamato cio che dice beato, se la fa-favola in disparte s'imbalba, se, fuori stagione, mattamente la storia clio clio pavoncella fa su e disfa l'opus maxime oratorium.

to that which loved to be consumed to a fabric, texture and tension that shrinks and, in the shrinking, leaves large selves myself not-me and you superlatively alive—what fatness, what quiet— superlatively dead mum-mummies-mosses and me and not-me and you in the inclusion in large colors and the colors in large shadows beatitude Once it was blessed, this shrinking. Ill Once it was blessed, blessed there, grand beatitude in circumspection or in another expansion shrewder and difficult in vases and pearl-bearing valleys in exclusive pearl-bearing silence. To interpret this parsimony this sleep. To refer to the wretched excrescence, to an apple a fig a thorn. To say, many things, of the season, using the infinite: so much softness. But do they survive for the bird's happy beak the clean wing the eye the wits? To defend that needle's eye that picklock that whirlpool. Well you were and well you are: but the empty proposition and the vain love where's recompense and how? By the leafy web of your hair by the hot symbioses by the aids the foods. To be blessed—against me—you command me even if what is called blessed has a bad name, if the fa-fable stammers to one side, if, out of season, madly history clio clio lapwing enwraps and unwraps the opus maxime oratorium.

Ma cavalchi, bel cavaliere errante: aromi sodi, chimismi riposti lungi dal fallire, raggi, preminenze, nascenze. Perche siete immortali perche sono immortale perche francamente immortale tu sei e l'uso dell'infinito

But you ride, fine knight errant: dense aromas, secret chemisms far from failing, rays, preeminences, births. Because you are immortal because I am immortal because frankly you are immortal and the use of the infinitive

Adorazioni y richieste, acufeni

Sul prato sullo sprone di ghiaccio. Ghiaccio di aprile, e che cosa e stato tutto questo chiedere? Questo voler adorare? Ma che e questa storia dell'adorare? Adorate adorate. Fischi negli orecchi. E dov'eri (pensiero: no; azione: no; amore: no; paesaggio: no) ? Ora vien meno anche il potere di tremare, tu che tremi la in fondo, ah che svolta faticosa, che notte. Ma ricordati di atterrare a regola ricorda l'impatto. Come—quella volta—se mi avessero meramente, appena . . . Oh, animo animo. Calci, colpi di piede. Acufeni. Eccomi, ben chiedere lungo chiedere, eccomi, bell'adorare —avevi un bell'adorare, tu!— toutes ces historiettes de femmes, de belles, de fiOh, ma con altro spirito vengo. Io spiro spirito. Che fantasia in quelle boscaglie e paesi exlege, ma il Ioro nome mi cade via anche se non intesi ragione ρϊύ valida, piu sacerta. Condizionami se vuoi ma. Che lunga escalazione d'anni prima e dopo, cosi simili al niente come io che giocavo-indicavo simile al niente simile strettamente simile. Giocavo nel cortile industriosamente rottami e rottami in cortile,

Adorations, Requests, Acouophonias

On the meadow, on the spur of ice. April ice, and what was all this questioning? This wanting to adore ? But what is this chatter about adoring ? Adore adore. Hissings in the ears. And where were you (thought: no; action: no; love: no; landscape: no) ? Now even the power to tremble fails, you who tremble there in the background, ah what a hard turn, what a night. But remember to land by the rules remember the impact. As if—that time—they merely had me, scarcely . . . Oh, wake up wake up. Kicks, blows with the foot. Acouophonias. Here I am, frantically asking asking at length, here J am, fine adoration —a fine adoration you had!— toutes ces historiettes de femmes, de belles, de fi— Oh, but I come with another spirit. I breathe spirit. What fantasy in those copses and countries outside the law, but their name slips away from me even if I never heard more valid reason, more holiness. Condition me if you like, but. What a long escalation of years before and after, so like nothing like me who played—showed like nothing like strictly like. I played diligently in the courtyard wreckage and wreckage in the courtyard,

adoravo, quanti cortili~belta. Ah mammina vera non perdermi nella notte nera~nera. «Ma sono gia la notte» suona tutto. Tu ti volgi al trepestio che la, impaurita 0 incretinita ascolti. Nonsense, pare? Nonsense e nottinere? Acufeni? E io, che vi facevo che vi aspettavo che vi adoravo? E poi tu strafai strabocchi. Ti imponi qui-stare alla lettera credere sulla parolacon biro. Vicisti.

e

Intravisto attraverso il verso piu impervio della situazione: «e 'vee paid! tut»

I adored, so many courtyard-beauties. Ah true little mama don't lose me in the blackblack night. "But I am already night" everything echoes. You turn to the sound of footsteps which is there, you listen frightened or idiotic. Nonsense, it seems? Nonsense and blacknights? Acouophonias ? And I, what was I doing there what was I waiting for there what was I adoring there? And then you overdo overflow. You impose yourself here—keeping to the letter believing in the word— with a BIC. Vicisti. Glimpsed through the most impervious reverse side of the situation: "e 'vee paidi tut"

Al mondo

Mondo, sii, e buono; esisti buonamente, fa' che, cerca di, tendi a, dimmi tutto, ed ecco che io ribaltavo eludevo e ogni inclusione era fattiva non meno che ogni esclusione; su bravo, esisti, non accartocciarti in te stesso in me stesso 10 pensavo che il mondo cosi concepito con questo super-cadere super-morire 11 mondo cosi fatturato fosse soltanto un io male sbozzolato fossi io indigesto male fantasticante male fantasticato mal pagato e non tu, bello, non tu «santo» e «santificato» un po' piu in la, da lato, da Iato Fa' di (ex-de-ob etc.)-sistere e oltre tutte Ie preposizioni note e ignote, abbi qualche chance, fa' buonamente un po'; il congegno abbia gioco. Su, bello, su. Su, munchhausen.

To The World

World—be, and be good; behave nicely, see to it that, try to, aim at, tell me all, and there I was overturning eluding and each inclusion was no less effective than each exclusion; come on, old pal, exist, don't curl up in yourself in myself I thought that the world conceived thus with this super-falling super-dying the world adulterated thus was only a me ill-hatched from a cocoon was me ill-digested fantasizing ill-fantasized ill-paid and not you, my beauty, not you "sainted" and "sanctified" a little further over there, to the side, to the side Make sure you (ex-des-res etc.)-ist and beyond all prepositions known and unknown, may you have some chance, act nicely for a while; give the mechanism play. Come on, friend, come on. Come on, Munchhausen

In una storia idiota di vampiri

I

1—Dove I'obiettivo velato dalla garza e le e le imagini vane dell'Ade (musichette lucignoli zuccherini e ami in cattivita a fare da richiami) e il dente che brilla come astro o ghiaccio o scelto avorio nell'alone di garza (fradicie musiche e foglie e il sedile di marmo). Garza, scarso emostatico, obiettivo velato, occhio di talpa ahi nostro, sudario . . . 2—Come dente di scelto avorio nell'arteria del collo confitto seducendo e inducendo dal suo ostensorio brilla il profitto 3—Come dente di pietra sacrificale affondato nel crudo nel minio del sangue in atto, dogma dominio 4—Park assennato ha sguardi e intenti e Berenice e il suadente e il padroncino azzimato. E il momento basso dell'arteria, e questo fiato sui collo che fa nel giugno la frigida bolla, lo svenimento che maisempre rapisce in una giostra del lunapark nubiloso, in una beffa sui marmoreo sedile. 5—Ma musichette lucignoli e zuccheri escono di cattivita e con dicerie spemi tinniti il tutto orchestrina si fa: «Cadi belletto balsamo, cedete cuspidi dentarie, ventose, labbra polpose. Psicanalessi: e si diragna la garza, cessa il bollore del sangue nel barattolo e il medico traditore affonda nell'informe farina, nella polvere di garza».

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In an Idiotic Story of Vampires

ι ι—Where the gauze-veiled lens and the and the empty images of Hades (pop-tunes wicks sweets and bait captured to act as decoys) and the fang flashing like star or ice or choice ivory in the gauze halo (rotten tunes and leaves and the marble bench). Gauze, scant styptic, veiled lens, mole's eye (ours, alas), shroud . . . 2—Like a choice ivory tooth driven into the jugular seducing and inducing profit shines from its monstrance 3—Like a sacrificial stone tooth sunk in the raw in the red-lead of the blood in action, dogma dominion 4—He's speaking wisely he glances and has goals it's Berenice, the persuader, the slicked-up boss. It's the low moment of the artery, it's this breath blowing on the neck that causes the icy bubble in June, the swoon that neverever carries away on a merry-go-round of the cloudy Luna Park, in a mockery on the marble bench. 5—But pop-tunes wicks and sweets escape from their cages and with rigmaroles hopes tinkles turn into a whole hurdy-gurdy: "Fall—cosmetics balm, yield—dental cusps, suckers, fleshy lips. Psychoanaleptics: and the gauze ravels, the blood stops bubbling in the jar and the traitor doctor sinks in the formless flour, in the gauze-dust."

6—E io e io chiamo qui tutti i buoni che vidi al cinema, e la sbarra d'acciaio con essi in quel cuore fresco d'altrui sangue affondo, la sbarra nel gonfiore fondo della bara; per genti molte e terre e pianeti a lui vengo e gli offro, inferia, il mio contributo di punte e di sputi. («Ma forse questo rito non e il gesto piu grande della sua grande forza, del ritmo che ha lasciato al nostro sangue ?») 7—Sempre meglio s'ingioia e tin tin I'orchestrina: «Venite a me emorroisse e frodati dei vostri grammi e oggettini e immagini e calori. Ecco in verita (farine?) (avis?) (moda parni laro tofra) leve poliscintillanti di fulcri e bracci, potesta prevalenti per mille valenze. Programmi analettici, contro mtte le deficienze». vedo il mondo caldo come un uovo, tuorlo soave d'aromi e di sicurezza. Possibile concedere togliere ragioni tutto in giro. Possibili forse violenze ad hoc. Stagna la porta, stagnami. Poi verro. Emostatico miro.

236

6—And I and I summon all the good people I saw at the movies, and with them I sink the steel stake into that heart fresh with the blood of others, the stake into the deep swelling of the coffin; through many peoples lands and planets I come to him and offer him—ritual sacrifice—my tribute of spikes and spittle ("But is this rite not perhaps the greatest gesture of his great strength, of the rhythm he bequeathed our blood?") 7—The hurdy-gurdy grows livelier and livelier with its tin tin: "Come to me all you with blood-fluxes, cheated out of your ounces trinkets images and warmths. Here in truth are (flour?) (blood-donor societies?) (moda parni Iaro tofra) poly-sparkling levers of fulcrums and brackets, powers prevailing through a thousand valencies. Healing programs, to combat all deficiencies." 8—Yes: I see the world warm as an egg, yoke sweet with scents and security. Possible to concede remove reasons all round. Perhaps possible ad hoc violences. Staunch the door, staunch me. Then I'll come. Marvellous styptic.

Infra e sovra strutture, e strutture, a perdita di vista di tocco di allure, e noi si volta in la e cancella, e un sorriso che seppi un mattino da giovane non importa se fosse maggio ο neve. Depauperata emoglobina, garza e siero, non parlate: ricordo tutto ricordo: e qualche cosa che un giorno ho saputo in modo cosi teso cosi definitivo che nel suo solo riverbero posso noi prendermi beffa di ogni altra definizione. Spasmi e fantasmi il credere il non credere; dei mondi e anime: bersagli mancati. Ma fu quel nudo totale mattino e ne grondo di plasma ambrosiaco, ne continuo.

Infra and super structures, and structures, out of sight of touch of allure and we turn aside from it and erase, it's a smile I knew one morning when young in May or snow no matter. Pauperized hemoglobin, gauze and serum, don't say a word: I remember remember everything: it's something I learned one day in such a tense definitive way that in its reflection alone I, we, can mock all other definitions. Spasms and fantasms believing and not believing; gods worlds and souls: missed targets. But there was that whole naked morning and I ooze with its ambrosial plasma, it keeps me going.

L'elegia in petH

Dolce andare elegiando come va in elegia I'autunno, raccogliersi per bene accogliere in oro radure, computare il cumulo il sedimento delle catture anche se da tanto prMico e predico il mio digiuno. E qui sto dalla parte del connesso anche se non godo di alcun sodo o sistema: il non svischiato, i quasi, dietro: vengo buttato a ridosso di in formicolio di dei, di un brulichio di sacerta. La origini—Mai c'e stata origine. Ma perche allora in finezza e albore tu situi la non scrivibile e inevitata elegia in petd} «Mama e nona te da ate e cuco e pepi e memela. Bono ti, ca, co nona. Bei bumba bona, fet foa e upi.» Nessuno si e qui soffermato—Anzi moltissimi. Ma ogni presenza sua di e questo spazio cosi oltrato oltrato . . . (che) «Nel quando O saldamente costrutte Alpi E il principe Le appare anche lo spezzamento saltano le ossa arrotate: ma non c'e il latte petel, qui, non il patibolo, mi ripeto, qui no; mai stata origine mai disiezione. Non spezzo nulla se non spezzato ma subito riattato, spezzo pochissimo e do imputazione—incollocabili— a mimesi ironia pieta; qui terrore: ma ridotto alia sua piu modica modalita. Per quel tic-si riattato, cosf verbo-Verbo, faccio ponte a pontefice minimo su me e altre minime faglie.

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>>

The Elegy in Petel

It's sweet to go elegizing as autumn moves in elegy, to collect oneself and thus securely collect clearings in gold, to compute the mass the sediment of seizures even though for so long I've preached and I predict my fast. And here I stand on this side of connected things even if I don't benefit from anything solid or any system: the still sticky, the almosts, behind: I'm thrown against a swarm of gods, a seething of holiness. There—beginnings. There never was a beginning. But why then in fineness and whiteness of dawn do you place the unwriteable and unavoided elegy in petel? "Mama e nona te da ate e cuco e pepi e memela. Bono ti, ca, no nona. Bei bumba bona. E fet foa e upi." No one has lingered here—In fact too many have. But every presence is so much its own and this space gone so far far beyond . . . (that) "in the when Oh solidly constructed Alps And the prince The " even the fracture shows, wheel-racked bones jump but there is no petel milk, here, no gallows; I repeat, here no; there never was a beginning, never a break-up. I break nothing not already broken but quickly mended, I break very little and—though they're unplaceable—accuse mimesis irony compassion; terror here: but reduced to its most modest means. By means of that tic-yes well-repaired, so verb-Verb, I act as bridge and pontifex minimus over myself and other minimal rock-faults.

L'assenza degli dei, sta scritto, ricamato, ci aiutera —non ci aiutera— tanto l'assenza non e assenza gli dei non dei l'aiuto non e aiuto. E il silenzio sconoscente pronto a tutto, questo oltrato questo oltraggio, sempre, ugualmente (poco riferibile) (restio ai riferimenti) (anzi il restio, nella sua prontezza): e il silenzio-spazio, provocatorio, eccolo in diflfrazione, si incupidisce frulla di storie storielle, vignette di cui si stipa quel malnato splendore, mai nato, trovate pitturanti, paroline-acce a fette e bocconi, pupi, barzellette freddissime fischi negli orecchi (vitamina A dosi alte per trattarli ma non se sono somatismi di base psichica), e lei silenzio-spazio e lei allarga Ie gambe e mostra tutto; vedo il tesissimo e libertino splendore e il fascino e il risolino e il fatto brutto e correre la polizia e—nel vacuum nell'inane ma raggiante—il desiderio di denaro fresco si fa piu ardente di dominio fresco di ideologia fresca; anzi vedo a braccetto Holderlin e Tallemant des Reaux sovrimpressione sovrimpressiono ma pure ma alia svelta ma tutto fa brodo (cerchiamo, bambini, di essere buoni nel buon calore, Ie tue brune tettine, il pretestuarsi per ogni movimento in ogni momento, calore non mai tardo nel capire come credono «certe persone» anzi astuto come uno di voi quando imbroglia grilli erbe genitori,

The gods' absence, it is written, embroidered, will help us —will not help us— after all the absence is not absence the gods not gods help is not help. And the unknowing silence ready for everything, this going beyond this outrage, always, the same (hardly attributable) (refractory to references) even more so the reluctance, in its readiness: and the space-silence, provocative, there it is in diffraction, it becomes greedy froths with stories, gossip, vignettes with which one fills that ill-born splendor, never born, daubed trouvailles, nice-nasty words in slices and mouthfuls, puppets, cold jokes whistles in the ears. (Heavy doses of vitamin A to treat them but not if they're psychosomatic), and she silence-space and she spreads her legs and shows it all; I see the very stretched and libertine splendor and the charm and the chortle and the ugly fact and the police running and—in the vacuum in inanity but radiant—the desire for fresh money becomes more burning for fresh rule for fresh ideology; I even see Holderlin and Tallemant des Reaux arm in arm superimposition I superimpose but yet but quickly but anything goes (let us try, children, to be good in the good heat, your small brown nipples, the making pretexts for every movement in every moment, warmth never slow to understand how "certain people" think on the contrary smart as one of you when he traps crickets grasses parents.

sappiate scrivere ma non leggere, non importa, iscrivetevi a, per, pretestuarvi all'istante) ma: non e vero che tutto fa brodo, ma: e rinascono i ma: ma Scardanelli faccia la pagina per Tallemant des Scardanelli sia compilato con passi dell'Histoire d'O. Ta bon ciatu.? Ada e mana papa. Te bata cheto, te bata: e po mama e nana. «Una volta ho interrogate la Musa»

244

Learn how to write but not to read, it doesn't matter, subscribe to, for, find an excuse on the spur of the moment) but: it's not true anything goes, but: and the buts are reborn: but let Scardanelli leave the page blank for Tallemant des Reaux, let Scardanelli be compiled with excerpts from L'Histoire d'O. Ta bon ciatu? Ada ciol e una e tee e mana papa. Te bata cheto, te bata: e po mama e nana. "Once I interrogated the Muse"

Da

III Le profezie di Nino. (Cosa mi fai scrivere, Nino!) (E non sappiamo se oggi tutto questo possa ottenere il permesso per un—^benche minimo—senso!) Nino, la piu bella profezia non puo mettere boccio che nei clinami di Dolle, dove tu, duca per diritto divino e per universa investitura, frughi gli arcani del tempo e della natura, e—piu conta—dai cieli stessi derivi il tuo vino che le tue vigne con lo stellato soltanto conlinano e col folto degli stellanti fagiani. Tu qui le tempeste e le nevi prevedi del domani qui il percento di latte e di frumento qui miseria o signoria. Ma sempre I'onda delle mele depone il suo meglio nei tuoi cortili, quadrifogliati foraggi ti gravano i fienili e le tue uve e i pampani e i tralci non c'e luce che in vita li vinca ne vento ne umore di terra: oflf limits la sofisticazione, lo stento! E—come dall'estro tuo si disserra il raccolto piu atteso, piu pagato di tutta la contrada—quando su per le nude coste mattutine cui gia dicembre pruinoso prude-ude-ude (ridondanze, ridondanze su strati su specchi su inesistenze) sali pedalando verso il feudo stillante genio e mirabilita,

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From "Prophecies or memories or bulletin-boards"

III The prophecies of Nino. (The things you make me write, Nino!) (And we don't know if today all this can obtain permission for a—though minimal—meaning!) Nino, the loveliest prophecy can only bloom on the slopes of Dolle where you, duke by divine right and by universal investiture, rummage in the secrets of time and of nature, and—more important—from the skies themselves you draw your wine since your vineyards border only on the starred sky and on the throng of flashing pheasants. You foresee here tomorrow's storms and snows here the percentage of milk and grain here misery or signory. But always the wave of apples lays down its best in your courtyards, four-leafed fodder weighs down your haystacks, and your grapes and vine-leaves and tendrils—there is no light nor wind nor earth-fluid which can surpass them in vitality: off limits the adulteration, the privation! And—as by your flash of fancy the most awaited, most valuable harvest of the whole district is released—when above through the naked shores of morning which hoar-frosted December already pricks-icks-icks (redundancies, redundancies over strata over mirrors over the non-existent) you climb pedaling toward the fiefdom dripping genius and wonderment,

tu, tra i settanta e gli ottanta anni pedalando quasi volage, profetizzi che nelle tue cantine presto ci troveremo in compagnia—che summit!— sceltissima e con cento e cento «ombre» conosceremo sempre ρΐύ profonde Ie profondita del tuo valore tradizionista a sera all'alba novatore: questo e Io zenit d'ogni tua profezia. VIII

Eva, forma futuri. Ma ora il bello e il bello si fa sempre ρΐύ inquietabile, titillare e divezzamento, su ad altri centri, il bello punta al sublime, l'uccello giardiniere sbeccuzza e sceglie bello da bello e butta su, ahi mai ci arrivero, e: scontemplare smuovere da un fascino per riafFastellare in un altro fascino e: origine del cono sublimizzante si abbarbicano si avvinghiano soffocano picchiano i nomi saltano uno sull'altro nomi e cromi —a proposito del fascino— —tentativi d'iperbole— ora non piu una mille vigne di mille Renzi bolle blu-miinchhausen su verso il sublime, alchechengi fucsie eliotropi qui ad esempio per primi e agostismi e settembrismi e altro e poi grandi depositi di termini botanici che mai realizzeremo—in quei luoghi male s'aggancia il fatto semantico al fatto fonematico ma tutto s'insegue sfreccia spara a vista

you, between seventy and eighty, pedaling almost volage, you prophesy that very soon in your cellars we'll find ourselves in the most select company—what a summit!— with hundreds of glasses of wine we will know always deeper the depths of your worth traditionalist at evening innovator at dawn: this is the zenith of all your prophecies. VIII

Eva, forma futuri. But now the beautiful and the beautiful grows more and more restless, titillating and weaning, up to other centers, the beautiful aims at the sublime, the gardener-bird pecks and chooses beautiful from beautiful and tosses it up, alas I'll never get there, and: discontemplating removing from one charm in order to pile up again in another charm and: origin of the sublimizing cone the names root entwine choke strike names and chromatics jump over one another —apropos of the charm— —tentatives of hyperbole— now no longer one but a thousand vineyards of a thousand Renzos bubble Miinschhausen-blue up toward the sublime, Japanese lanterns fuchsias heliotropes for example first and Augustisms and Septemberisms and others and then large deposits of botanical terms which we'll never realize—in those places the semantic fact hooks up badly with the phonematic fact but everything pursues itself darts shoots on sight

insegna e disinsegna graffe laccioli asole urti suspense prevedibilita—, forte I'ikebana si ikebanizza il mondo finalmente, ikebana o meglio macchinetta di idee-mostri-astri su dentro, avanti, su a, via I'arsura e la pioggia la stabilita e I'instabile a caccia fiori foglie steli e floreste a caccia nel niente per niente cacciatori e prede carnefici e selvaggine polpe colme pistilli stami e spine a caccia piu dentro fino a dare nello spessore a dar di becco nel sublime-blime moltiplicato per il molteplice-plice ricaduto in gran braci Algol Vega Sol nella lente d'insiemi Ah I'esplosione del significare del comporre per i bambini di Mezzaselva, ah pedagogic! e poi tanto shopping tra tutte queste belle «I colori ti salvano» (dal commento di un esperto a un Rorschach) (ma che figura facevi nelle scenette di Rosenzweig . . .) Adam forma futuri. X

Ammirata, eminente erba di Dolle, moltofiore moltocielo moltorugiada, a te umilio ogni altro pregio a te dispongo ogni creante-creato. Tutto I'altro dunque ti e aureola o tutto in te si ricovera e si ritrova, luna nuova o mondata appieno, sereno o follia di piove. Eccitavi, addormivi ? Salire o scendere muovere o giacere con te, giacere con te equivale corrisponde consuona, verde senza alcuna tregua impegnato impregnazione, di te stessa ti ben nutrivi e pascevi il latte e la carne ? 250

teaches and unteaches clamps snares buttonholes blows suspense anticipation— the ikebana is strong the world is ikebanized finally, ikebana or better small machine of stars-ideas-monsters up inside, forward, up to, through drought and rain stability and the unstable hunting for flowers leaves stems and flower-forests hunting in the nothing for nothing hunters and prey butchers and game brimming flesh pistils stamens and thorns hunting deeper within until you hit the thickness until you sink your beak in the sublime-blime multi­ plied through the multiple-tiple fallen down in great embers Algol Vega Sol in the lens of wholes Ah the explosion of the meaning of composing for the children of Mezzaselva ah pedagogies! and then so much shopping among all these beauties "The colors save you" (from the comment by an expert on a Rorschach) (but what a figure you cut in Rosenzweig's little sketches . . .) Adam forma futuri. χ Admired, eminent grass of Dolle, multiflower multisky multidew, to you I humble every other praise, incline toward you every creating-created thing. All the rest, then, is a halo for you or everything shelters in you and finds itself again, moon new or well-husked, clear sky or madness of rain. Were you aroused, asleep? Ascending or descending moving or lying with you, lying with you equals corresponds blends, green relentlessly involved, impregnation, did you feed well on yourself and graze milk and flesh ?

Che facevi la nelle notti e tra i lucori e i mieli che s'infusero e afiusero alle tue veneri a questa banda di realta e di fantasma? Ostensione immediata e rapina sulla via che a te s'avvicina, tremantemente ingordamente verificata assunta, sulla via che da tutto svia salvata, sommo di me, di te. E quanto muta, e come sai il dicibile e Io provochi e Io fai. E quanto decisa delicata afHuenza traslazione a crittogamie fanerogamie futuribilita e prestigi. Ma come? Ma che? E come oso rivolger(mi) a (te), metter(ti) in rapporto con (me) con qual siasi XI

Imprevisto ritorno al tu durante un'eclisse solare EPIGRAFE

E ancora c e roba, c e posto per questi corpi grandi. Un colpo un fendente un far di punta un far niente e il fascino in cui tanto a lungo, a lungo . . . ο mia anemia. Corpi grandi, far teatro crescere svanire; l'unghia ο il morso frutto, Tencausto il viola deattivato, la pupilla dentro la corona. In tutta pubblicita.

What were you doing there at night and between glows and honeys that infused and diffused in your venuses in this band of reality and fantasy? Immediate ostension and robbery along the way that draws close to you, trembling­ ly greedily verified assumed, on the route that deroutes, saved, from everything, highest of me, of you. And however silent, how well you know the sayable and you provoke and do it. And however decided delicate affluence translation to cryptogamia phanerogamia futurabilities and prestiges. But how ? But what ? And how shall I dare to turn (myself) to (you), relate (you) to (myself) with anything what soever XI

Unexpected return to the "thou" during a solar eclipse EPIGRAPH

And still there's stuff, there's room for these large bodies. A blow a thrust a swish a miss and the charm in which for so long, so long . . . oh my anemia. Large bodies. Making theatre grow vanish; fingernail or bitten fruit, encaustic deactivated purple, eye's pupil inside the crown. In full display.

TESTO

Sempre se da immense stanchezze spinto via qui derivo come in questo mattino d'echssi il divieto si spezza —e fermo mercurio e la fonte ed il mondo e I'altezza—, con te penso, di te profetizzo, te scrivo. Te nelle fosche sequenze degli attimi delle baize dei piani? Negli orizzonti cui guastano oniriche pieghe fatali atmosfere necrosi tenaci? E allora offro tutto il mio esistere—ometti tutto il tuo esistere— che si fa a porgere ombre diverse ai declivi, cieli diversi al mattino, «per vederti ancora in un altro destino, in un'altra vittoria su un'altra nuova morte». E come sento e attendo e picchio di taglio e di punta e I'abile detto rinverdisco e vendo: azzurro azzurro sui monti, ricche d'infinito le colline dove cercavo te sbavavo scalciavo. E mi torni con spessori di nascite e d'amori, nel terrore del tuo svanire, che non e terrore. XIII

L'ombra di lontane e molte colline di volti e silhouettes e mani lontane. Quasi quasi qui loquace paperottola che fai? Di colline e di mani passate (dita, impronte) mani e colline future (impronte, dita),

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TEXT

Always if—pushed away by immense weariness—I drift here as on this morning of eclipses the prohibition shatters —and steady mercury is the fountain the world and the height— I think with you, prophesy you, write about you. You in the shadowy sequences of instants of plains' crags ? In horizons wasted by oneiric folds fatal atmospheres tenacious necroses? Then even more I offer my whole being—you omit all yours— that makes as though to lend different shadows to the slopes, different skies to morning, "so as to see you again in another destiny, in another victory over another new death." And how I feel I wait and strike with edge and point I re-green and sell the clever saying blue bluer on the mountains, rich with infinity the hills where I searched for you slavered kicked out. And you come back to me with thickness of births and loves, in the terror of your vanishing, that is not terror. XIII

The shadow of far-off numerous hills of faces silhouettes and distant hands. Almost almost what are you doing here talkative little goose ? Of past hills and hands (fingers, fingerprints) future hands and hills (fingerprints, fingers)

scorrere nello scorrimento profondo nell'andirivieni della tessitura. Carbura bene. Colline e ombre e propositi insani ninine e colline vaneggiate vagheggiate venienti e ciao vane. Passato e futuro in oscura combutta intorno alia fitta. E come chiamano, laggiu. La fitta si chiama—chiamano—raggio e poi privilegio retaggio si chiama, si. Vuoi riapparire e connettere vuoi gli andirivieni gli spessi cammini la paura-phobos cosi fuia laggiu la meraviglia-thaumazein a bocca aperta—oro—lassu. Piove, per tutti gli dei, piove. Sulle tue -ude, sui tuoi freschi -eri sulla favola bella che speri sui piu sui meno sull'aggregato sui frazionato, svegliati appello, ordine, ahi. Augelli che nel nido di foglie verginalmente api che a nube furiosamente, ma piove, piove. E poi il massimo I'interessato I'improbabile. II picchio nel suo forame, forare punti. E la memoria e tutto astrale e I'idillio e il «verdeggia oltre» Pegni a scadenza

per: te, noi, silhouettes,

XVI

Fine delle soflferenze contadine delle mosche e della grassa, ragnatele di feudi di feudatari di proprietari, altri affreschi dovevano affiorare dalla calce ma invece qua davanti s'avvalla il terrain vague

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-ine.

to flow in the deep flowing in the comings and goings of the weave. It carburizes well. Hills and shadows and mad resolves ninine and dreamed hills coveted comings and ciao to lost things. Past and future in a dark crowd around the stab of pain. And how they call, down below. The stab is called—they call it—ray and then privilege heritage it's called, yes. You want to reappear and connect you want the comings and goings, the dense paths the fear-phobos so furtive down below the marvel-thaumazein open-mouthed—gold—up there. It rains, by all the gods, it rains. On your -ude, on your fresh -eri on the lovely fable you hope for on the more on the less on the aggregated on the fractionated, wake up appeal, order, alas. Birds that virginally in a nest of leaves bees that furiously in a cloud but it rains, it rains. And then the greatest the interested the improbable. The woodpecker in his hole, riddling the middle. And the memory and everything astral and the idyll and "the grass is greener" Pledges falling due

for: you, us, silhouettes,

XVI

An end to peasant sufferings to flies and dung, cobwebs of fiefdoms fiefholders landowners, other frescoes should have surfaced from the lime but instead right before us the terrain vague subsides

-ine.

il grande interregno, e topi e serpi hanno tanto comperato ormai da queste parti; ma guarda che ρΐύ s'e fatta proprietaria la talpa. Tema per Ie elementari per il non e mai troppo tardi: «riconoscere Ie or me di talpe topi e simili». Gli onorevoli parleranno domani sulla rinascita delle colline: «Visitate Dolle!», serie possibilita di competizione da piano a monte da colle a colle e soprattutto derattizzare aprire campagne antimurine, detezione di piste abitudini nature finezze murine, da confine a confine. Ma: per virtii d'un infittimento di righe nello spettro, per via d'un solecismo in questo discorrersi, di una sua fortunosa incelerazione, appari, Nino; e sei il ρΐύ sintomo tra noi tutti bisbiglianti sintomi a te dintorno e afiini buon per noi, malgrado noi, per questo rubi via tutte Ie carte, fai cappotto, con la tua caduta a ritroso nella distorsione addensi giusto e gusto ardenti alle tue spalle. Cosi: dura sul naufragio e si carena per il futuro congettura forme inalbera e sventola piani di ricerca Nino il ducazio, motorizza elettronizza televisivizza, mette in sintonia con l'iper con l'ultra, ottiene mandati patenti primati omologati da ispettorati, come da ogni animante animato vegetale minerale e dalle ρΐύ accreditate fantaentita la grande investitura ducaziale.

the great interregnum, and rats and snakes have bought so much by now in these parts; but see— the mole, more than any others, has made herself proprietor. Theme for the elementary schools for the "it's-never-too-lates": "recognize the tracks of moles rats and the like." The Senators will make speeches tomorrow about the rebirth of the hills: "Visit Dolle!" serious possibilities of competition from plain to mountain from hill to hill and, above all, rooting out rats, starting anti-rat campaigns, detection of rat tracks habits natures wiles, from horizon to horizon. But: by virtue of a thickening of lines in the spectrum by way of a solecism in this talking talking, of one of its fortuitous incelerations you appear, Nino; and you are the most typical of us all with all these other symptoms whispering around you and similar to you good for us, in spite of ourselves, for this you steal all the cards, hit the jackpot, with your fall backwards into distortion you condense Tightness and taste burning behind you. Thus: he survives the shipwreck and caulks for the future conjectures forms hoists and unfurls plans for research Nino his Dukeness motorizes electronizes televisizes, synchronizes with the hyper with the ultra, obtains authorizations patents prizes stamped by inspectors, as by every animating animated vegetable mineral and by the most accredited fiction-entities the great ducatial investiture.

In un puteus per gli archeologi del 19 mila, in un cunicolo in una fessurina non frugarvi! tutto e documentato e ripetibile, la sfrigolano su schermo vitrovit Ie immagini noi (inclusivo) in filmine didattiche noi (esclusivissimo) in reticine di retine, in video da polso, in comic strips argento vivo: il tuo vino e uno schiafio al medico e un calcio alio stento alia sofisticazione, tu sapesti distinguere quella volta —ma non il gerarca dell'agricoltura— un toro da una vacca un melo da una vite, e che dire della sgarba inesausta il cui latte colma ogni disavanzo, che del «puro maiale» donde usci tanta roba da taglio? E poi una certa cultura lunare qui di moda, ah Iuna mai tanto amata investigata drittamente falsata per averti al tavolo con la compagnia! Tutto sta nel ricco ricciolo della pellicola, tutto, ne per noi sarebbe strettamente necessario altrimenti affannarci a persistere, forse, che il nostro gran ridere in quei luoghi, lacune di luogo, a—, in quelle fiammate dell'essere, su quelle ultime rampe, conta-alla-rovescia, borezzo totale come la bora e certo, in parte, crudo come la bora, ha forse vinto e detto okey e poi adieu a tutto, ed e—almeno—, per tutto (augurio, profezia) a disposizione a gettone. Tanto, in questo fondo, resta del processo di verbalizzazione del mondo.

In a puteus for archaeologists of the year 19000 in a cuniculus in a cracklet—don't dig! everything is documented and repeated; there on the screen vitrovit the images splutter we (inclusive) in didactic film-strips we (most exclusive) in fine nets of retinas, in wrist-TV, in quicksilver animated cartoons: your wine is a slap at the doctor a kick at misery at adulteration, you knew how to distinguish that time (but the boss of agriculture didn't) a bull from a cow an apple-tree from a grapevine, what can we say of the unemptied udder whose milk makes up for every deficit, what of the "pure pig" from which came so many choice cuts ? And then a certain lunar culture in fashion here, ah moon never before so loved investigated downright distorted in order to have you at table with the guests! It's all contained in the swirling curl of film, all, nor would it be strictly necessary for us otherwise to struggle to persist, perhaps, since our belly-laugh in those places, lacunae of place, non-, in those flare-ups of being, on those last ramps, counting backwards, irrepressible laugh total as the Bora and certainly, in part, rough as the Bora, has won perhaps and said OK and then adieu to everything, and is—at least—, for everything (portent, prophecy) available at the drop of a token. So much, in these depths, remains of the process of verbalization of the world.

ι—L'un l'altro guarda e del suo corpo essangue sul pomo della spada appoggia il peso. Ansimare nel nero dell'alba. Salire su ansimare sulla soglia sul gradino (a/irrigidimenti di posizioni—confronti di volonta c/mobilitazioni dimostrative e/atti di violenza vessatori n/spettacolare dimostrazione di forze) 2—E il torturatore e il tentatore (apre una porticina, dissimula) 3—Il paesaggio ha tutto confessato, essudato, il paesaggio e in confessione, in sudore. Il crimine. Il crimine. La mi ero liberato da ogni sogno e un sogno, La facevo marcire l'attenzione: attenti. Sottolineato col rosso encausto imperiale: ammissioni sogni segni. Oh. 0. Vi si trascinano frammenti di prospezioni di pugne di furberie d'imbrogli. Neanche. Mettere al paragone e poi sciupare cavar via questo strato col suo inquisirsi coi suoi scarsi imparamenti. 4—E il tentatore riapre la porta e il torturatore rilegge cio che che che aveva fatto rossamente essudare fuori. Idee tropi nomi e niente. Un paesaggio-traino di £ori, di grida. Colpisci trafiggi dunque. Diecimila frammenti d'acciaio irraggiati intorno. 5—E tu cereus in vitium flecti cereo nel cedere, per te anche la fedelta e solo un modo dell'acedia; e tu in semiluce con Armida ed Alcina, bouches ventres reins fouilles tra i fogliami. Miraggi incalzati, troppo avanti, oltrati.

ι—One looks at the other and leans the weight of his bloodless body on his sword-hilt. To gasp in the dark dawn. To climb up to pant on the threshold the doorstep (a/hardenings of positions—confrontations of will c/demonstrative mobilizations e/oppressive acts of violence n/spectacular demonstration of force) 2—And the torturer and the tempter (he opens a small door, dissembles) 3—The landscape has confessed everything, exuded, the landscape is confessing, exuding. The crime. The crime. There I was freed from every dream it's a dream, There I made attention rot: Attention! Underlined with imperial red encaustic: admissions dreams signs. Oh. O. There fragments of prospectings for battles for chicanery for frauds crawl along. By no means. To compare and then tear off this stratum with its inquisitions with its scant learning. 4—And the tempter re-opens the door and the torturer re-reads that which which which he'd made gush out bloodily. Ideas tropes names and nothing. A landscape-in-motion of flowers, screams. Hit, pierce, then! Ten thousand steel fragments rayed out around. 5—And you cereus in vitium flecti waxy in the yielding, for you even fidelity is only a way of sad sloth, and you in half-light with Armida and Alcina, bouches ventres reins fouilles among the foliage. Closely pursued mirages, too far ahead, advanced.

6—E un «Mirage» un «Phantom» un «Vie» un «Vite.» Ultrasonici. Segnalazioni nel fondo deH'occhio. Ricognizioni del fundus oculi del fundus coelorum. SofEoni soffiati pappi tutti questi lanci di paracadute, falchi e colombe farfalle e vespe sull'attraente sullo spolpabile. 7—In ultima analisi in prima sintesi tutto sottratto o sommato prima di ogni somma addendi che la su mah addentellandi parole piene con colla di parole vuote presto troppo presto per far cenno ai linguaggi o ad altro prosa forma paesaggio. Napalm dietro il paesaggio. 8—Arrestarsi sulla soglia del santuario centrale. 9—Un tentativo un traffico di divise all'orlo a fianco, dogane imbrogliate, si dice. Confusamente m'avvicino (al tastare). 10—O mio paesaggio perche mi hai . . . paesaggio-aggio (spezie rare) ? Ho paesaggito molto. Chi mi parla di libri carte e arte mi atterrisce (di donne, di storia-e, di paesaggi). Chi mi parla mi uccide. Mi mancato poco per vivere poco per sfuggire alia vita. 11—II torturatore il dongiovanni il cereo-ceroso lo spaventapasseri in fumo di film. 12—z/Spasm or insensate war 13—Non dimenticare il campo, I'intrinsechezza che corre tra disparato e disparato, la fine filialita paternita di questi ricami-richiami. 14—«La mia paga, la mia paga!»

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6—And a "Mirage" a "Phantom" a "Vie" a "Vite." Ultrasonic. Signallings in the eye's depths. Recognitions of the fundus oculi of the fundus coelorum. Blown dandelions pappi all these parachute-launchings, hawks and doves butterflies and wasps on the attractive on the de-fleshable. 7—In the last analysis in the first synthesis everything subtracted or summed up before each sum sums to be added, that, there, on (shrug) meshing full words with the glue of empty words soon too soon to allude to languages or anything else prose, form, landscape. Napalm behind the landscape. 8—To halt on the central-sanctuary threshold. 9—An attempt a traffic of currency at the edge to the side swindled custom-houses, they say. I approach confusedly (groping). 10—Oh my landscape why have you to me . . . landscape-scape (rare spices)? I've written a lot about landscape-scape. The man who speaks to me of books papers and art terrifies me (of women, of history-ies, of landscapes). The man who speaks to me kills me. It would have taken so little for me to live So little to escape life. 11—The torturer the Donjuan the whitey-waxy the scarecrow in a film-smoke. 12—z/Spasm or insensate war 13—Don't forget the field, the intimacy that runs between disparate and disparate, the fine filiality paternity of these needleworks-needlings. 14—"My wages, my wages."

Part V

From Pasque (1968-1973)

Misteri della pedagogia

Il Centro di Lettura. Distinguere un poco raccogliere mettere da parte per dime bene: in tutto: rigirando bene tutto sotto la lampada . . . Qui si somministra la dolcissima linfa del sapere anche ad ore impensate e i fanciulli e i vecchi suggono e certo che apprendono al Centro di Lettura: e si imparte e comparte la vivanda si tira l'orecchio al distratto si premia e castiga con frutto usando onniveggenza; si offre piu d'un documento a bene pregiare la vita e tutto (ora che in crepuscolo e dono e tutto: non forse timbri e toni nel senso deH'aggiustamento?) Meli pieni di pioggia e di fiori da sempre, di sempre, adoranti, quanti «sempre!»: e dissero: in sognolio e luminio di primavera pioggia a filo a filo a filo ribadita e grigie e gridi e forme— una sera un crepuscolo ciondola intorno mi ciondola la testa e sugli habitat e quasi festa il profitto qua e la mangiucchia qua e la ammucchia e tutto rientra in questo ehi! anzi racconto

Mysteries of Pedagogy

The Reading Center. To distinguish somewhat to collect to save in order to speak well of it: in everything: turning everything well under the lamp . . . Here is administered the sweetest lymph of knowing even at unthought-of hours and the children and the old people suck certainly they learn at the Reading Center: and one imparts and shares the food tweaks the inattentive ear rewards and punishes with fruit using all-seeingness; they offer more than a document to appreciate life and everything to the full (now that everything is in twilight and a gift: not perhaps timbres and tones in the sense of harmonizing?) Apple-trees full of rain and flowers since the beginning of time, forever, adoring, how many "forevers!": and they said: in dreamering and glimmer of Spring rain dripping dripping dripping repeated and grays and groans and forms— an evening a dusk dangles about us my head nods and on the habitat it's almost holiday profit nibbles here and there piles up here and there, and everything is contained in this hey! or rather this story

di cui vado accennando e poi accentuando i trucchi le risorse le voglie d'avvicinamento . . . come—se fosse vera—sui bilico di una selva di meli in pioggia 10 scoppiettare di un trattore verso la carraia 10 vengo da abbastanza lontano salgo in cattedra al Centro di Lettura ci sono i bambini le ragazze delle medie la vecchia maestra Morchet, parlo di Dante: che bravi che attenti, oh lui, quello Dante! in cattedra nel luogo dei meli e delle viti nel pozzo delle delizie grigie. E la maestra Morchet: «Lume non e se non vien dal sereno che non si turba mai» cita, dalla sua sedia a destra della cattedra, cattedra da cui si park di Dante, «Bravissima, signorina: luce non che non venga da quella». Tre bambine un po' lolite certo apprendiste magliaie nove scolari fra elementari e medie certo un operaio; nell'armadio ci sono bei libri qui al Centro di Lettura niente di marcio niente d'impostura —anche moderni, si assicura—e che benefit che gratificazione da qui 11 Ministero della P.I. «Lume non che non venga». 11 tizzone Thai visto, nel brolo.? Fumava nelle lanugini fumava dal rotto. E i bachi li hai visti serificare da tutto il loro immenso ghiotto.? Era il paragone famoso per me: frivolo e solo

270

which I'm indicating and then accentuating the tricks the resources the desires to approach . . . as—if it were true—on the balancing of a wood full of apple-trees in the rain the put-put of a tractor toward the cart-road I come from way off I climb up to preside over the Reading Center there are children secondary school girls the old woman teacher Morchet, I speak of Dante: how good how attentive, oh him, that one, sure, Dante! on the rostrum in the place of apple-trees and vines in the well of gray delights. And Signorina Morchet: "There is no illumination unless it comes from that serene which never is disturbed" she quotes, from her seat on the right of the rostrum, the rostrum from which we speak of Dante. "Very good, Signorina: there is no light unless it comes from there." Three little Lolitas doubtless knitwear factory apprentices nine students between elementary and secondary school and someone a workman for sure; in the cupboard there are fine books here at the Reading Center nothing corrupting nothing fraudulent —modern too, we're assured—and what benefit what gratification the Minister of Public Instruction bestows here. "There is no illumination unless it comes." Have you seen the burning brand in the orchard ? It was smoking in the ground-mist, it was smoking where it broke. And have you seen the silkworms making silk from their great gluttony? The simile was well-known to me: frivolous and only

a leccornie attento: ma se questa stessa fosse quasi didascalia piena di passi in cammino piena di stonature accettabili come Ie gocce d'acqua di melo gocce di fiori di melo piene Primavera baco e natura da troppo in ambage fuori del Centro di Lettura vanno al bosco vanno in muda vanno in vacca dormono della quarta e noi del Centro invece—oh notte— siamo con Dante e la maestra e il maestro reggente e gli uditori alia questua dei valori siamo tesoro non turbato Sbagliato credere che la signorina Morchet sia—cosi vecchia— proprio la in fondo, nel fondo di Lorna. Saliente . . . provveduta . . . non smessa nel fioco . . . Ha viaggiato in Sicilia Finlandia e Turchia nozioni mette a profitto e manna ne fa, quale pecchia industriosa, nel suo quaderno appunto su appunto si aggiorna (giustamente, ma invano, diceva a mia zia «le poesie di suo nipote si capiscono poco») (giustamente, ma invano, aspettava da due colombe appaiate un'ovatura copiosa). Dessa e: la sua faccia e [quella della] [pedagogia] un po' dura un po' tonta un po' sorda, —oh cieli della pedagogia— per andare avanti indenne attraverso «i dubbi eccessivi Ie negazioni che feriscono i bambini» e il Centro di Lettura i cuori—si i cuori Ie menti—si Ie menti

intent on delicacies: but if this itself were almost commentary full of marching steps full of dissonances acceptable as drops of apple-tree water drops of apple-blossoms full Spring silkworm and nature for too long in circumlocutions outside the Reading Center they go to the woods they moult they rot they sleep like logs and we of the Center instead—oh night— we are with Dante and the teacher and the Principal and the listeners begging for values we are undisturbed treasure It would be wrong to think that Signorina Morchet —old as she is— was stuck there in that hole in the depths of Lorna. Outstanding . . . prepared . . . no cast-οίί into silence . . . She has travelled through Sicily Finland Turkey puts ideas to good use, makes manna of them, like a busy honey-bee, brings note after note up to date in her book (correctly, but to no avail, she said to my aunt "it's not easy to understand your nephew's poetry") (correctly, but to no avail, she expected from two paired doves a copious clutch of eggs). There she is: her face is [that of] [pedagogy] a bit harsh a bit distracted a bit obtuse, —oh skies of pedagogy— in order to advance unharmed through "the excessive doubts the negations that wound children" and the Reading Center hearts—yes hearts minds—yes minds

e tolgono respiro e sostegno alle colline e non parano le frane non rassodano non pagano (e sbattono le porte e stridono le piogge e volano le tegole e—sotto vento— i meli i meli e poi piii). Capito? Attenti, vero? Ai comportamenti del mondo, a come si ottiene il frutto, a come abbondi il prodotto all'esame; esaminare dunque, e poi avanti; esamino, al futuro, il futuro e rido con Dante nel sereno che non si turba mai e imito a gogo le potenze butto giii butto giu per le forre il frutto o sopra ci passo sopra ci passo col trattore. E se, ecco, dalle corolle dei meli, delle piogge . Se adatti contatti e non . . . Se xenoglossie non glossolalie . . . Se Dante aiutando . . . Se quei sibili d'asma-appello . . . Se un nostro sbilanciarci in pedagogic . . . Come c'e stento ora e scarsa divinazione. Avro un voto basso, di annientamento, saro castrato dalla pedagogia. Suggeriscimi tu, prego, ad esempio, amico, degno cittadino di questo habitat —e ora comodo comodo sotto la coperta di sterpi di triboli—;

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and they cut off breath and support from the hills and don't hold back landslides don't shore up don't pay (and doors bang rains screech tiles fly and—downwind— the apple-trees the apple-trees and then no more). Got it? Are you paying attention? To the world's behavior, to how you get the fruit how the product may abound on examination; to examine therefore, and then go on; I examine, in the future, the future and I laugh with Dante in the serene which never is disturbed and I imitate a gogo the powers I toss down toss down the fruit through gorges or run over it run over it with the tractor. And if, now, from the corollas of apple-trees, of rains . If suitable contacts and not. . . If xenoglossias not glossolalias . . . If with Dante's help . . . If these wheezes of asthma-appeal . . . If taking some slight risks in pedagogies . . . How much privation there is now and scarce divination. I'll get a low mark, enough to wipe me out, I'll be castrated by pedagogy. Please advise me, friend, good citizen of this habitat —and now cozy cozy under the cover of brushwood of brambles—;

dov'e il tuo banco ? Sei assente ? Devo segnarti con un A sul registro? Ma non sapevi che al Centro di Lettura tengo una conferenza su Dante e che attendevo il tuo intervento di dantista desmat? Non apprezzi come sono agibili i nostri rispettivi schizoidismi alia presenza Alia presenza di mille meli di un milione di colline di un tre studentelle di un cinque magliaie, che amore, del maestro reggente della signorina Morchet, medaglia d'oro alia P.I. con settant'anni e settanta quarantene di vera gloria pedagogica, alia presenza della stessa presenza Oh nella presenza. Prego: sii anche tu giovane docente di cui non discuto autorita umori nervi tu gemma del video sacra-immaginetta copertina tu bellissima fatale eccezionale istruitissima: —quai chicche scolastiche quai zuccherine didattiche trappole quai comedie psicoplastiche— e che successi perfino su guerre pesti e folgori otterresti otterremmo grazie al nostra metodo e nonostante i nostri rispettivi schizoidismi assolutamente dissimmetrici— maestra Morchet assenziente tricotante e citando citando Dante su verso a verso scalante

where is your desk? Are you absent? Should I mark you Absent on the register? But didn't you know that at the Reading Center I'm lecturing on Dante and that I expected you to be there as a Dante-hobbyist? You don't appreciate how feasible are our respective schizoidisms in the presence In the presence of a thousand apple-trees a million hills a trio of girl-students a fivesome of factory girls, what love, of the Principal of Signorina Morchet, gold medal awarded by the Ministry of Ed with her seventy years and seventy forty-day waiting periods of true pedagogic glory in the presence of the same presence Oh in the presence. Please: may you be the same young woman teacher whose authority I don't dispute moods nerves you TV jewel, sacred-image, pin-up you most beautiful fatal exceptional most learned: —such as scholastic goodies such as didactic sugar traps such as psychoplastic comedies— and what successes even over wars plagues and lightnings you would obtain we would obtain thanks to our method and notwithstanding our respective totally asymmetric schizoidisms— Signorina Morchet nodding her head knitting and quoting quoting Dante who keeps climbing verse by verse

Turbato e il significato. Spiove, spia tra e tra passato. Non obbediscono al richiamo Ie gallinette e Ie stelle. Eros benefit gratificazione magagna sangue e tempo gramo sulla pagina caso pone. Fuori pedagogia out out, contro i meli e Ie maestre, Ie potenze . . . i principi . . . Ii scruti dalla finestrina dall'oblo (trafiggono imprendono gestiscono non conoscono Ie sazieta gesticolano impalano si fanno razzi scoppiano in corolle di scintille lassu . . .) ma il Centro di Lettura . . . ma nuove pedagogie per i morti e forse per gli altri . . . oltre forre e boschi escogitate . . . «Lume non e se non vien si turba mai»

The meaning is muddied. It rains, it spies between and between the past. Pullets and stars don't obey the summons. Chance places on the page Eros benefit gratification blight blood and calamity. Outside pedagogy out out, against apple-trees and teachers, the powers . . . the princes . . . you stare at them from the small window from the porthole (they pierce undertake direct don't know satieties gesticulate impale become rockets burst in corollas of sparks up there . . .) but the Reading Center . . . but new pedagogies devised for the dead and perhaps for others . . . beyond ravines and woods . . . "There is no illumination that does not come never is disturbed."

Subnarcosi

Uccelli crudo infinito cinguettio su un albero invernale qualche cosa di crudo forse non vero rna solo scintillio di un possibile infantilrnente aurnano rna certo da noi che ascoltiarno -allarrnati-Iontano - 0 anche placati-Iontano uccelli tutta una citta pregna chi usa glorie di glottidi acurni e vise hi di dottrine un chiuso si-si-sign~ficare nernmeno infantile rna adulto occulto nella sua rninirnita [disperse specie del rnio sonno che rnai ritornera].

Subnarcosis

Birds harsh endless twittering on a wintry tree something harsh perhaps not true but just a spark of possible— childishly a-human but certainly for us listeners —alarmed—far off —or also calmed—far off birds a whole city teeming closed glories of glottises acumens and doctrinal snares a closed me-me-meaning not even childish but adult occult in its minimalness [scattered species of my sleep that never will come back].

Qualcuno c'era

Come una sera giungemmo tra nubi ed erbe un po' sfollate fuori la lei e due bamboli e belle ombre animose . . . Fermento di legna odore in pili e quell'io-ero esclusivamente fisico e stavo nel poverissimo luglio: indenne, lui luglio, da me e dai miei io non indenne, essi tutti (ben presto) coniglietti. Perche c'era: ben chiusa ben piccola ben persa, la stalletta. E sognata da un parco sogno dallo sguardo non entusiasta-le erbe alte fino ai davanzalii coniglietti madre e figli nella stalletta un po' pnglOmen un po' Ah, e Nessuno. non li amo non Ii sono e nessuno Ii e. E tutto e quasi senza colori, 10 guardano, fieno a fili denteggiano e guardano: se piove? Dura in Iegna-coniglia Ia sera qui, brucati due fili, l'occhio un po' dolce un po' pauroso. E quale storia lontana lontana. Non e un camminare 10 so. La purezza (almeno) socchiusa, a due passi, e COS1 l'aldila, cioe noi: e fossimo amorosi tra noi fossimo amorosi di un po' di cibo fossimo, nel bariume della sera ... Mamina-coniglia due bambi e-goccia a goccianello sfollato nel perso. Sfocato.

Someone There Was

As we arrived one evening among clouds and grasses

somewhat away from crowds outside she and two dolls and lovely valiant shadows . . . Wood-ferment a fragrance added and that I-was exclusively physical and I was in the poorest July: unharmed, it July, from me and mine, I not unharmed, all of them (quite quickly) little rabbits. Because there was: quite closed quite small quite lost, the hutch. And dreamed by a frugal dream with an unexcited glance—the grasses high, up to the windowsills— the little rabbits mother and babies in the small hutch somewhat imprisoned somewhat Ah, and I don't love them I am not them and no one is them. No one. And everything is almost colorless, they look at it, they nibble hay-stalks and look: will it rain? The evening lasts in rabbit-wood here, two wisps browsed, the eye rather sweet rather fearful. And what a long-long-ago story. It's not walking I know. Purity (at least) half-closed, two steps away, and thus the hereafter, which is to say: us, and would that we were loving with each other would that we were amorous of a bit of food that we were, in the glimmer of evening . . . Small mother-rabbit two babies and—drop by drop— in the dispersed in the lost. Out of focus.

Ma infine non invano e tutto se tutto pian piano coniglia lieve conigliazione. E non avanzo nulla piii che la fasciola di sera, che la tendina acquata, che il fieno impigliato tra i segni e udii: nitriti guaiti mugugni nel risvolto nel plicato. Qualcuno c'era una volta, ora bruca, smusa dov'e possibile. Un disegno-design perfettissimo tuttavia: da qui scattera: a sconigliare a rifarci sgambettare, lunghe gambe, gambi, per dove —La maestra lo dice lo dice Lewis e Alice.

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But in the end not everything is in vain if everything is slowly slowly rabbiting a light rabbiting. And I have nothing left except the thin band of evening, the curtain of damp, the hay entangled among signs and I heard: whinnyings yelps mumblings in the foldback in the much-creased. Someone there was once upon a time, now he browses, noses his way where possible. A most perfect drawing-design however: it will let fly from here: to disrabbit to make us scurry about again, long legs, stalks, for where —The woman teacher says so Lewis and Alice say so.

Sovraesistenze

No, non-certo, sovraesistenze— sopravvivenze, sovraesporre— e la linea spezzata che in ogni suo punto si spetra si squieta si svia O com e dolce la pericoloso a portata di mano eppure non brucia la mano tutto il pointille la preesistenza com'e in linfa gronde e gronde scorrimenti di vero e—impossibile—crepa nel possibile ma liso ma puro come una volta una volta come spezzare spezzare spezzare— sempre aderii aderisti pelle a pelle cielo a cielo ed erbe-bello in gregge transustanziato azzurro limo, ci arrivo, lasciato da fluire-nulla liscia ombra che s'azzurra s'infumiga di luna di neon E «mio» e «tuo» minimi pruriti —ti pizzico spiccico— dispersi nell'erba nel neon nello ieri. La giostra turbina e tuba vento ammaestramento, a gran gozzo: che c'e ed e > essere, ogni e qualsiasi per la sagra si riimbatteva in si rinsanguava cosi per difetto con ogni deliziosa omissione ammanco addio oh rinnovatevi memorie come erboso spessore sagra vuota colonnina lampeggiatore ecco un ecco un

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Supraexistences

No, surely-not, supraexistences— survivals, overexposures— and the broken line that at every point dissolves disquiets diverges Oh how sweet it is is/ (is) there, dangerous at hand and yet it doesn't burn the hand the whole pointille the pre-existence as sap is conduits and conduits slippages of truth and—impossible—a crack in the possible but threadbare but pure as once upon a time upon a time like breaking breaking breaking— always I clung you clung skin to skin sky to sky and grass-grace in flocks transubstantiated blue slime, I understand, left by the nulliflow smooth shadow that grows blue grows smoky with moon with neon And "mine" and "thine" are faint itches —I prick unstick you— scattered in the grass in the neon in yesterday. The carousel coos and whirls wind, teachinglesson, throatily: that there is and it is > being, every and whosoever for the festival bumped into got new blood thus for lack of with every delicious omission deficit farewell oh may you renew yourselves, memories, like grassy denseness empty festival winking blinker here is a here is a

un misero pochino

[esperienze]

ο una ricca sfondante ( )

una: I'asfalto una: il crocicchio una: pieta e subentusiasmi per questi spunti e colori rimessi a luce tirati a riga dal al e noi spinti dal recto al verso ma per mano a tutto connessi a tutto dal niente sapientissimi in niente che glisa, glissa, e non v'e sforzo piu mite e muto piu ore ultime ore piu sottil fiore [collo strettoia] ho detto che venimmo c'e quel si/no che glisa quel % che traballa non esprimere non cedere aspetta non commuoverti tra non commoventi e non segni e seni e discontinuita: gira la giostra blu con tre ragazzi freddo sagra vino vuota aprile freddo Iuna inarcata in un sospetto freddo in uno scherzo ο scarso ο gentil credere bambi lunapark spesine spento cine freddo acquisti d'emergenza emergenze freddo sternutivi—svincolo Iiso moviola Iisa noia vino ben curato eccellenza e noia vino coltivato ed armonia in noia non si diparte, e qui. Tra °°ooo° e cilecche d'altro e di noi passare di qua fu necessario sagomare il molle la molla

a wretched bit

[experiences]

or a rich thing forging ahead ( ) one: the asphalt one: the crossroads one: mercy and subenthusiasms for these take-οίί points and colors brought back to light lined up from to and we pushed from recto to verso but by hand to everything connected to everything by nothing most wise in nothing that slips, slithers and there's no effort milder and muter more hours last hours slimmest flower [neck bottleneck] I said we came there's that yes/no that slithers that tottering % don't utter don't yield, wait don't panic among the unmoving and non-signs and inlets and lack of con­ tinuity: the blue carousel spins with three children cold festival wine empty April cold moon arched in a suspicion cold in a joke or scant or pleasant belief babies Lunapark small spendings dark moviehouse cold emergency buying emergencies cold you were sneezing—worn release worn moviola boredom well-tended wine excellence and boredom cultivated wine and harmony in boredom it doesn't leave, it's here. Among oooooo anc] misfiring others' and ours we had to pass this way to shape the pliable the coiled spring

«Vedi, nel campo della sagra spenta-cine o quasi, e sono solo le lo e ^ di sera, a nessuno importa, zero importante. Poesie scritte sulla sagra da contadini sui duro sui molle del freddo da contadininell'alea dello stanzone, giostra e ragazzi. Limboluna di stra(fumo) stra(vento). E, bevibile. E, soldini per il tiro a segno, violence now. Quando tutto persiste cosi abbandonato, lo ritrovo, leso e liso di nonessere ma cosi ad esso inobbediente cosi importante cosi povero e renitente» Nuota nel minimo, crawl, nuota. Nel tirato a nudo della decalcomania. Canta, giostra: cantagiostra in saggezza lisa d'eterno, vi glissa tra eternita Use, glisa. In penombra i bambini sparano a segno— —ultime raffiche [mitra tedeschi]— oh nella febbre, nei fondali, ascoltale, Tu morto. E il lampeggiatore conforta se e il niente e—drogatella di nulla trovatella di nulla—la notte. Tempo di chiacchierii di salivati fiati. Dicesi . . . Ehumm. Si drizzano i brividi gli spini gli orecchi (ehumm!) e tutte le viscere atte a sapere s'in s'infecondano di nuovi saperi! Se quell'unique fille . . . sporca e splendente si, ignara della propria, forse, monetina, ma con un sogno destro appartato e selvatico ma con un cenno di chiamo e dissento (al capolavoro) ma con—lunato divinato addome— ma con—spara al cuore risparmia il volto—ristoro nel folto del pianto che si ruppe sui nascere

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"See, in the festival field dark-movie or almost, and it's only 10:30 P.M., it doesn't matter to anyone, matters zero. Poems written on the festival by peasants on the hard­ ness the softness of the cold by congealed-peasants in the alea of the hall, carousel and children. Moonlimbo of over (smoke) over (wind). And, drinkable. And, pennies for the shooting-gallery, violence now. When everything endures so deserted, I find it again, wasted and worn with nonbeing but so disobedient to it so important so poor and reluctant" Swim in the minimum, crawl, swim. In the strippednakedness of the decal. Sing, carousel: singingcarousel in worn wisdom of the eternal, slips there among worn eternities, slithers. In half-light the children shoot at targets— —last volleys [German machine-guns]— oh in the fever in the backgrounds, listen to them, You, dead. And the winking blinker comforts itself and the nothing and—druggery of nothingness foundling of nothingness—night. Time of chitchat of salivated breaths. They say . . . Hmmm. Shivers thorns ears prick up (hmmm!) and all the entrails fit to know be-become fertile with new knowledge! If that unique fille .. . dirty and so dazzling, unaware, perhaps, of her own small change, but with a deft dream, withdrawn and wild, but with a gesture of calling and dissenting (at the masterpiece) but with—divined halfmoon belly but with—shoot for the heart spare the face—solace in the thick of the lament that broke at birth

nel vuoto nel pieno del pianto del lampeggiatore lamp lamp bar lume lume di bar nell'angolo. Non toccare quel ventoso quell'avventato quell'ostinazione quel persa-ricuperata quel colpo di luce-tosse. Sovraesistete. Figure ? Fallire ? Tesi indifendibile ? Ah no liso ma colligato, furentemente celestialmente intero sparato nella verita bestialita e perdii ancora io-noi (e lui-esso-essere-ente), di palo in frasca si rincora e infiora! Scarta scardisce sfrigola annuisce! E si vedra che bei (testo) ne uscira tessutissimo anacolutico colloquiabile e viceversa, impegno—e gazza, gazzetta. Parola!

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in the void in the fullness of the blinker's lament lamp lamp bar light light of the bar on the corner. Don't touch that windy that reckless that stubbornness that lost-found that tic of cough-light. You supraexist. Figures? Failures? Indefensible thesis? Ah no, shabby but tight-bound, ragingly celestially whole, shot into truth bestialities and byGods and more of the same I-we (and he-it-be-being), scatterbrain takes heart, crowns with flowers! Discards dethistles splutters agrees! And you'll see what a fine (text) will emerge closewoven anacoluthic conversable and viceversa, pledge—and magpie, gossip-mag. Word of honor!

Lanternina cieca

(a Epifania, pasquetta, mezz'oretta) e appena il supplements di sole s'e consunto e appena il soffio e l'azzurro cominciano a produr frutto qua e la di stelle— qua e la si donano stellari grazie tra i rami stella-venimmo stella-favo stella-magi Stella in chioccolio ai margini della neve si gonfia un po' folle il sogno di queste tante nevi letti laghi lastre lenzuola aiole difficile e lustro deglutire deambulare bivaccare divaricarsi da tanta neve da freddi/nevi incaponiti in capricorni e spini acronie atopie ma provocare fin che provochi che provochi? In splitting/specchi che lanternina cieca dondola la ? Lei altissima in nero col fazzoletto in testa nero Lui basso e nero ma con gli occhi di fatato ghiaccio da domini e viluppi di candori discendono lenti di aver tettato il molto e il caldo dal vino dei Fordan, stalla e filo, di fieno e fiati scendono ben fondi, di stillicidi forze principi stelliferi, da vini e lunghe tettature tra occhi di vacche e dei tanti Fordan— cellule Iuci dondolano Lui/Lei Lei con Lui della lanterna il lusso fruga e glissa per mondi di neve e di stelle

Small Darf^-Iantern

(at Epiphany, little Easter, half-hour) and the supplement of sun is just consumed and the breath of air and the blue just begin to produce fruit here and there of stars— here and there stellar graces show themselves among the boughs we-came-star honeycomb-star magi-star star in warbling at the snow's edges the dream of these so-many snows swells a bit, mad, beds lakes slabs sheets flowerbeds difficult and shiny is swallowing strolling bivouacking opening wide from so much snow from colds/snows stubborn in Capricorns and thorns timelack spacelack but provoking until you provoke what do you provoke? In splitting/mirrors what small dark-lantern swings there? She very tall in black with the black kerchief on her head He short and dark but with eyes of bewitched ice from dominions and tangles of dazzling whites they descend slow from having suckled the much and the warm from the Fordans' wine, stable and nightwatch, they descend well-fattened by hay and breaths by drippings strengths starifying principles, from wines and long sucklings among the eyes of cows and of the so-numerous Fordans— cells lights swing He/She She with Him the lantern's luxury probes and slides through worlds of snow and stars

s'illustra il cammino s'immilla di lanternine un po' brille Neta/assai/ben piu/altissima in nero Toni-oci/meno/buio nerobestemmia ma vi'tu ma varda ma quali in interminati concili di nevi e geli in reti di neuroni e sinapsi astrali in piste riscontri viraggi di nevi su nevi: Toni, Neta, qui dondolando tra lustri di arbusti lanterne cieche, domani forse pile!

the road shines is multiplied by thousands with dark-lanterns, slightly tipsy, Neta/quite/much more/very tall in black Toni/oci/less/dark blackoath but you see but look but which in endless confabulations of snows and frosts in networks of neurons and astral synapses in tracks comparisons swirlings of snows on snows: Toni, Neta, dark-lanterns swinging here among shinings of shrubs, tomorrow—flashlights, perhaps!

Feria sexta in Parasceve

. . . . . . . e come rimonterai gli strapiombi della della tua tomba tu ormai verso i -273 tutta arsa dal transfert per ghiaccio e guano? Una testa di cane ti abbaia, morta, il momento d'oro; un cane testardo rotea fiuta adocchia e alza la gamba al cippo del tuo memento. Adoralo, orsu, dei cari gatti dimentica la tribu.

Feria Sexta in Parasceve

and how will you climb again the steep heights of the of your tomb you by now toward absolute zero all burnt by the transfert toward ice and guano P A dog's head barks at you, dead, the golden moment; a stubborn dog prowls round sniffs eyes you and lifts its leg to the gravestone of your memento. Come on, adore it, forget the tribe of dear cats.

Feria sexta in Parasceve (variante)

e come ti abbaieranno Ie campane che si tratta di un risveglio tutto fratture stritolamenti profondi da non esserci piuP Tu col fluido furioso delle chiome ti strangoli al decor semitragico d'orzi al biondospento al nereggiante di papaveri. Oh, infine, il tuo giacere eroico, di gradino: suU'ultimo gradino. «Sono una liberata». Che stufi t'insegnera mutolo Anubi ?

Feria Sexta in Parasceve (variant)

and how will the bells bark at you that it's a question of an awakening all in fractures crushings so deep it annihilates being ? You strangle yourself with the furious fluidity of your tresses in the halftragic decor of barley in the fadedblonde in the blackening of poppies. Oh, finally, your heroic lying down, like a step: on the last step. "I'm a liberated woman." Will mute Anubis teach you that you're a bore?

Codicillo

No, non e vero, piu semplice e amico e l'impegno qui con umani con divinita. Ombre = Iuci cieli = terre come in un sogno di fortissimo ozono anche se talvolta crudelta. Degno rapporto di placata amante memoria. Dulcedini volonta-buone mani alzate non a prece ma a gloria —sovradeterminazioni sovrastrati abbattevano— —sgusciati da coltivi e da fabbriche da incensi e da rugiade operando d'alba in alba si riconobbero. Biciclette trillarono.— O stelle viti acque a grappoli, in alba, quasi disabissate abbondanze d'Emmaus, conciliazione che in tutto prevarrebbe congruita embricazione di sanera con sanera. No nessun nume ne umano allontaniamo grazie sono i certami con lui-ciascuno perche ciascuno infinitamente ci avvezzo ci svezzo al lucore di questo nostro insieme e del niente.

Codicil

No, it's not true, the commitment is simpler and more friendly here with humans with divinities. Shadows = lights skies = earths as in a dream of powerful ozone even if cruelty at times. Worthy relationship of soothed and loving memory. Sacred-sweetness good-wills hands raised not in prayer but for glory —superdeterminations superstrata they demolished— —issued from the cultivated and from factories from incenses and dews working from dawn to dawn they recognized each other. Bicycles trilled.— Oh stars vines waters in clusters, at dawn, almost disabyssed abundances of Emmaus, conciliation that would prevail in everything congruity overlapping of it-will-heal with it-will-heal. No, we send away no numen and no human the contests with him-everyone are graces because everyone endlessly trained us weaned us to the glimmer of this wholeness of ours and of nothingness.

Cosi nel disagio del prato nell'oscuro del bosco quasi sfrangiato scaduto male ο anche, al tramonto, animale appello, richiesta di riconoscimento— da sterilizzanti lunazioni e stonature ritorno quasi afiettuoso nell'oscuro risarcimento dell'odore, nel lurido del nido—noi scuotendo il capo—nostro umile: forse entro abissi di bacche e fogliami superstite prodursi in voto e profitto umano d'oscuro da reinvestire in leggi strappate-in-su, al reversibile, tendini (e tu fuori mano annuisci povera bastarda folia, entropie in barcollare riarso/oscuro, infittirsi di spettri e strette nel bario, tiraemolla di abitudini somme ed inani, d'invenzioni decrepite). Dove valse cibarsi di fragole e lamponi, citando citando la verita, dove delle ciliegie emersero i noccioli come pietredure nell'alone oscuro, evocando dal bando del nottegiornoniente i piu equivoci boccioli— vedervi con uguale sgomento con uguale assenso rinnovato in bianco, privo di riserva; sentirvi, vicine come l'erba > oscuro del prato dove perii, dove periro/sorgero.

Thus in the meadow's unease in the woods' dark almost frayed, faded, the bad, or even, at sunset, animal appeal, request for recognition— from sterilizing lunations and discords an almost affectionate return in the dark recouping of the scent, in the filth of—we, shaking our heads—our humble nest: perhaps a production surviving inside abysses of berries and foliage in vow and human profit of dark to reinvest in upwrenching laws, to the reversible, tendons and—out of reach—you nod assent, poor bastard crowd, entropies in a burnt dark reeling, thickening with ghosts and squeezed into the barium, wavering of sublime inane customs, of decrepit inventions. Where it paid to feed on strawberries and raspberries, quoting quoting the truth, where cherry-pits emerged like semi-precious stones into the dark halo, evoking from the banishment of nightdaynothing the most ambiguous buds— seeing you with equal dismay equal assent indefinitely renewed, unlimited; feeling you, -Le, close as the grass > dark of the meadow where I perished, where I shall perish/shall rise.

Zanzotto, "fabbro del parlar materno"1

Without exaggeration, Zanzotto's La Belta has exploded in the Italian literary scene like a bombshell. Some critics warn of his "trobar clus" and find that it is difficult to ascertain his "meaning"; others provide elaborate hermeneutical keys for an understanding of the work. Montale likens the effect of Zanzotto's language to that of a drug, and P. P. Pasolini, who used to share Zanzotto's ideology and cultural horizons and to experiment with dialects, finds that "the reader is put in an unprecedented condition of estrangement from his reading habits."2 For all its complexity, La Belta is both "crystal" clear and electrifying, if we consider the position of "The Elegy in petel" at the center of the work, as central to Zanzotto's structuring of signification. " 'Petel,'" the author tells us, "remains an undefined field of expression that could no longer exist; unprotected in the sense that it has no formal structure. It is as though it had no beginning and were reluctant to come to a formal conclusion." In the Elegy, this pre-language of the in-fans (Zanzotto, as Glauco Cambon stresses in his Foreword, has his roots deep in the Venetian region, even though his mind is directed toward Milan, the Italian "megalopolis") is confronted with the end of lan­ guage and of poetry, exemplified by two fragments from the verse Holderlin wrote in the dark of madness. The preconscious beginning of "petel," and the beyondness of lan­ guage and poetry re-duced ("brought back") to silence, circumscribe "an uncertainly defined field of expression to be constantly woven and rewoven, a median zone that today could no longer exist, yet is reluctant to come to an end." 1

In Purg., XXVI: 114-117, Dante has Guido Guinizelli refer to the Provencal poet Arnaut Daniel as "a better craftsman of the mother tongue." 2 In Nuovi Argomenti, number 21, 1971.

Between the irretrievable beginning of the "mother" tongue ("quae sine regula nutricem imitantes accipimus," Dante says)3—mater-matter-matrix of being(s)—and the terror of the end, the Elegy points to a form-less magma at the center: an all-encompassing median zone in which the structuring of signification is not predicated on the Sussurean hiatus "signifier/signified" ("Holderlin: 'siamo un segno senza significato': / ma dove Ie due serie entrano in contatto? / Ma e vero? E che sara di noi?"),4, but on the sign/object dichotomy. The sign/object binarism has allowed linguists to move from prescriptive to descriptive grammar. A linguist can view the sign as a means of "communication," as having a meaning of its own insofar as it is part of a coded and decodifiable system of signification. Therefore, says Roman Jakobson, "The function of poetry is to point out that the sign is not identical with its referent. Why do we need this reminder? Because along with the awareness of the iden­ tity of the sign and the referent (A is A:), we need the consciousness of the inadequacy of this identity (A is not A:); this antinomy is essential, since without it the connec­ tion between the sign and the object becomes automatized and the perception of reality withers away(italics mine, as they are throughout). Jakobson's proposition disqualifies as either artistically or socially relevant any mimetic or mediating representation of reality. On the other hand, however, the antinomy inher­ ent in "poetic function" may enable the poet—the artist in general—to overcome the dilemma that there seems to exist between "self-expression" and "communication" (since a 3

De Vulgari Eloquentia, I, i, iii: "which we acquire without any rule, by imitating our nurses." 1 From "Si, ancora la neve." 5 From "Co je poesie," Volne smery, XXX (1933-34)· Translated by Victor Erlich in Russian Formalism: History-Ooctrine (The Hague, 1955), p. 154.

maximum of referentiality reduces in proportion the "per­ ception of reality," a poet who chooses his own experience of the world—his erlebnis—as the object of signification, binds himself to incommunicability). While it lasted, Surrealism and, in Italy, various genera­ tions of "hermetic" poets—Montale foremost, but also the Zanzotto of before "From a New Height"—could avoid the impasse by resorting to oneiric language. "Communica­ tion" occurs at the level of the unconscious and the integrity of a "poetic" function is maintained. But at the formal level, the monotropism of the poet leaves integrally intact the linguistic codes of his cultural \oine. Viewing these codes as means of social conditioning, the poets known as I novissimi have begun to "experiment" with the formal aspects of language, but still fail to realize the antinomic system of referentiality pointed out by Jakobson. Their rejection of the linguistic codes of an "unjust" society is meant to communicate ideological revolt. How­ ever, since these poets do not surrender the privilege of "self'-expression, the schizomorphism of their poetic vision hypostatizes the inadequacy of the sign to free a collectively recognizable image of reality. Zanzotto jolts the Italian reader because he both concep­ tualizes and accepts the antinomy, "poetic function." Since "function" ambivalently refers to a personal variable {parole) and to the common code to be found in usage {la langue), Zanzotto assumes as object of his communication the very tension that exists between his unique parole and its reference to la langue of his cultural \oine. This he does at the expense of self-expression, or rather, by integrating the expression of the self in the very fabric of the work, by making the "object" of his communication the new (and only "real") object, which is the work itself. Freeing the sign from any link to a pre-existing "meaning," the linguis­ tic speculation of the poet becomes the mirror for an heteronomous intelligence of socially conditioned linguistic codes:

his verbal fabrication presents itself as a program for an alternative social fabric. Though devoid of axiological value, the verbal mass that corresponds to the poet's conceptualization of the world— at the limit, the whole of history, the historical and physical universe of human culture as well as the fragments of memory he can bring from his terra incognita—carries the high voltage of a datum that with-holds its own denotation: come abbiamo, noi, tollerato che tutto fondesse nel suo, difalcato, "che voi e io e tutto fosse un dato e non cio che si da."e E delicato e il mio gesto nel mostrare se alia sera, nel dirimere fronde. Messo t'ho innanzi, ora snella t'appare la figura, scatta si confonde. e farsi dell'energia, del campo tutto frugifero, dell'ingegno in gemma; versato il tuorlo, gettato Io stampo testo ave ad ave avanzante, lemma a lemma.7 The "impossible" tension of his sign (Zanzotto says that "it could no longer exist") owes its dynamic force to a con­ stant dialectic between rhetoric and poetics. The sign may, at times, reach the quietude of a temporary, precarious equi­ librium, as in the analytical instances of auto-exegesis given above. Most often, however, it is sent spinning in a centrip6 From "Possibili prefazi ο riprese ο conclusioni, V": "How is it that we have tolerated / everything dissolving into itself, lessening / 'as though you and I and everything were a given / and not that which gives itself!'" 7 From "Retorica su: Io sbandamento, il principio 'resistenza,' V": "Delicate is my motion, revealing itself / to evening, parting branches. / I've served it up, now the form appears / swiftly, leaps and merges. / . . . / generation of energy, of the most / fruitful field, creation in the bud; / the yolk spilled, the mold discarded, / text, ave by ave advancing, lemma by lemma."

etal and/or centrifugal revolution toward an unattainable point of convergence: Danza orale danza del muscolio di tutta la bocca come quella che intona intempora la fonetica poetica, compensi prelievi e doseggiare, mille linguine e a-lingue a-labbra argento neve nulla e anche meno oppure neve e poi a-neve a-nulla8 ora non piu una mille vigne di mille Renzi bolle blu-miinchhausen su verso il sublime, alchechengi fucsie eliotropi qui ad esempio per primi e agostismi e settembrismi e altro e poi grandi depositi di termini botanici che mai realizzeremo—in quei luoghi male s'aggancia il fatto semantico al fatto fonematico ma tutto s'insegue sfreccia spara a vista insegna e disinsegna graife laccioli asole urti suspense prevedibilita—9 It is perhaps the in-cantatory anomaly of Zanzotto's lan­ guage that has hypnotized his critics, preventing them from seeing what seems so obvious as to be plain "common" sense. If you take as dividend the sum total of the known/ knowable, and then take literally the poetic function as co­ extensive divisor, the quotient must be one. In other words, a poet who views the sign as capable of activating (Zan­ zotto's terms are, "invivare," "invivimento") the linguistic code in its totality, every unit—sememe, lexeme, morpheme, phoneme, grapheme, moneme—will have to be charged 8 From "Profezie ο memorie ο giornali murali, V": "Dancing, oral dancing / of muscles throughout the mouth / as poetical pho­ netics in tempo intones; / filling in, taking out, carefully dosing, / a thousand tiny tongues, a-tongues, a-lips, / silver, snow, nothing, and then even less / or, snow and, then, a-snow, a-nothing." 9 Ibid., VIII.

with a high frequency commensurate to the task it is sup­ posed to perform. Thus, Zanzotto's anti-metaphoric, anti-symbolic opera­ tion must first be viewed in its total structure. Stefano Agosti's paradigmatic reading of La Belta10—his identifica­ tion of two opposite homological series, "History > verbalization" and "amnesia » aphasia" at the content and formal level, respectively—provides a "thematic" analy­ sis of the work which is useful, but ultimately reductive. The autological treatment of the sign as a basic unit enables Zanzotto to extend the principle of analogism simul­ taneously along vertical-paradigmatic as well as horizontalsyntagmatic sets of relationships. This is true as it pertains not only to his grammaticalness ("e sento il linguaggio / come un una uni salire dentificare . . . ," or "la nel finalmente, nell'ero-uni-ero,"11 etc.), but also to the recurrence of thematic signification within a more inclusive network of associations made possible by the application of analogy at all levels: E i pini-ini-ini per profili e profili mai scissi mai cuciti ini-ini a fianco davanti dietro l'eterno l'esterno l'interno (il paesaggio) dietro davanti da tutti i Iati12 Chiamarlo giro ο andatura rettilinea, a che se dicenti scienze e patti e convenzioni far capo?13 "Zanzotto ο la conquista del dire," in Il testo poetico—Teoria e pratiche di analisi (Milano, Rizzoli, 1972), pp. 211-218. 11From "Possibili prefazi . . . , IV": "I feel language / like a, one, ones—climbing, dentifying . . and from "Per lumina, per limina" (Pasque, Milano, Mondadori, 1974): "there, in the finally, in the I was-uni-was. . . ." 12 From "Si, ancora la neve." 13 From "Profezie ο memorie . . . , V": "Call it circle or linear progression, / what self-proclaimed sciences, compacts or conven­ tions should one refer to." 10

Bimbo, bimbo! Secondo cantilena, gira e rigira, mena e rimena, ma anche secondo l'antico accedere a una convergenza14 The point here is that what is missing is precisely the point of convergence—whether at the top of the "sublimiz-

ing cone" of history (poetry included), or at the bottom of the subliminal, emblematically represented by "petel"—for the very hiatus sign/object, assumed as the premise of this poetic operation, precludes it by de-finition: e la Stella che brucia nel suo riccio e la castagna tratta dal ghiaccio e—tutto—e tutto-eros, tutto-lib. Iiberta nel laccio15 Il nucleo stellare la in fondo alia curva di ghiaccio, versi, inventive calligrammi ricchezze, si, ma che sara della neve dei pini di quello che non sta e sta la, in fondo?16 La e il vivente. Ma non e ancoro ristoro (restauro), nulla e la sede, nullo l'invivimento, l'invivarsi.17 "Restoration" of the self in view of social "restauration": given the hiatus that divides man from his form-er self— 14

Ibid., IX: "Baby-baby! / Just like the nursery rhyme, round and around, turn and return, / but also like the ancient advance to convergence." 15 From "La perfezione della neve." 16 From "Si, ancora la neve." 17 From "Possibili prefazi . . . , I": "There is the living, / though not yet the restauration (restoration); / no place for it, no / vivification, nor being vivified."

the ego from the ludic eros—the restauration the poet can offer must occur through the restoration of language. Only the disembodiment and re-orientation of language can pre­ figure the recovery of the "other" in oneself. The object, then, is not the word-Word ("verbo-Verbo"), but wordness. The point that has any reality of its own is the sign, the period mark, /./, once it is syntagmatically structured: Senza posa conosco e riconosco, un uomo sono un tosco che va parlando onesto di cose primitivizzate e primarie anche se niente Ie allena in eternita. Perche di eterno non v'e che il diniego quello la vecchio, fermo davanti a.18 The observation that Dante is the ozone of contemporary Italian poetry must be tested—if we are to take the metaphor seriously. "After the wasteland" (or after The Waste Land), we can hardly conceive of "spiritual" affinities with Dante's metaphysical archetype. Rather, we should look for the kind of dialectic tension of which this passage gives clear evi­ dence: the antithetical parallelism of "in eternita." and "fermo davan/z a."—reinforced by both the rhyme and the metathesis of contiguous phonemes, /it/-/ti/—has its climax in the diametrically opposed semantization of /./ at the end of the respective syntagms. Through the shift in semantic fields, the incorporation of the Dantean reference (no "literate" Italian would fail to experience an instant recall of its context in Inf., X: " Ό Tosco che per la citta del foco / vivo ten vai cosi parlando onesto, / piacciati di restare in questo loco. / La tua loquela 18 From "Profezie ο memorie . . . , II": "Untiringly, I know and recognize, / I'm just a man, a Tuscan who goes / speaking modestly of primitivized / and primary things, though nothing trains them for eternity. / For nothing is eternal except the denial, / the old one, firmly in front of."

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ti fa manifesto / di quella nobil patria natio, / a la qual forse fui troppo molesto' ")19 generates a complex, polysemous network of analogies charged with profound irony. On the ground of his speech, Zanzotto becomes "un tosco che va / parlando onesto di cose primitivizzate / e primarie ...," thus abiding by Dante's own stylistic canon, ". . . ma ne la chiesa / coi santi, e in taverna coi ghiottoni."20 But much more than style is at stake here: what is involved is a direct confrontation of Zanzotto's syntagmatic-agglutinative poly­ semy by analogism with the polysemy of Dante's historicosymbolic universe. The polysemous density of Dante's word-Word predicates its cohesion on the vertical, historical relation of the symbol to the "thing" it symbolizes: the cross is Christ, to use Barthes' example ("L'imagination du signe," in Essays cri­ tiques). As the anarchy of the "forest" at the roots may and must be reduced to that one tree, so the ultimate goal of the vision will be the multiplicity resolved in the One ("sustanze e accidenti e lor costume / quasi conflati insieme, per tal modo / che cio ch'i' dico e un semplice Iume").21 Zanzotto's polysemy is predicated on the radiation of the sign, an optical crystal, a laser that stimulates the amplifica­ tion of light: 19

Inf., X:22-27, "O Tuscan, who go alive through the city of fire speaking thus modestly, may it please you to stop in this place. Your speech clearly shows you a native of that noble fatherland to which I perhaps did too much harm." For passages from the Inferno and Purgatorio, I have used C. S. Singleton's translation (The Divine Comedy, Bollingen Series LXXX, Princeton University Press, 1970 and :1973); for the Paradise, the Dorothy L. Sayers', as edited by B. Reynolds (The Comedy of Dante Alighieri-III, New York: Basic Books, 1962), with a few changes of my own. 2 0 Inf., XXII: 14-15, ". . . but 'in church with saints and with guzzlers in the tavern!' " 21 Par., XXXIII:88-90, "HOW substance, accident, and mode unite / Fused, so to speak, together, in such wise / That this I tell of is one simple light."

lingua-rubino che insegue e fustiga tutte Ie Iuci mediocri e selvatiche di un mondicello in morbino (laser in grosso snob oserei dirla e in nobilita): Ie assesta in un che tutto raggiunge e, annientando, vertifica.22 The referentiality of the image disintegrates and the sign regains its own autology, provided of course that the author eliminate his own persona, "authorizing" instead a maxi­ mum of virtual associations on the part of the reader: Ma zompando toccando si assetta il sub il fondale, fa predicati il presente, oscilla-e, e il ramo, si fa il margine, al margine, dove essere e virtu. Virtu e volgere e richiamo.23 Zanzotto's metonymic analogism is an extrema ratio to be applied with equal intensity at every intersection of the sign along both its paradigmatic and syntagmatic axes. Freed from all pre-existing reference to any object other than itself, the deflagration caused by the sign in all its actual and vir­ tual meanings sets in motion an analogical constellation of meaning to the nth power: a caccia piu dentro fino a dare nello spessore a dar di becco nel sublime-blime molti22 From "Possibili prefazi . . . , VII": "language-as-ruby / (a rather snobbish, noble laser I would call it), chasing and slashing all the dim, uncivil lights of a petty, prurient world: / fixing them in a— / which touches all / and, wiping out, vertifies." 2s Ibid., VI: "But as one leaps and touches, the sub- the silt settles out; / the present makes predicates, it trembles-is, it is the branch; / margin is made, at the margin, where being is a virtue. / Virtue and turning and calling."

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plicato per il molteplice-plice ricaduto in gran braci Algol Vega Sol nella lente d'insiemi24 When Dante decries the vanitas of all artistic poiein, his disavowal of poetry is integral to the architectonic structur­ ing of the Commedia. The lesson of humility to be learned in the purgatorial terrace of pride is the very means which enables him to gaze further toward the ultimate point of convergence ("Che voce avrai tu piu, se vecchia scindi / da te la carne, che se fossi morto / anzi che tu lasciassi il 'pappo' e Ί 'dindi,' / pria che passin mill'anni? ch'e piu corto / spazio a l'etterno, ch'un muover di ciglia / al cerchio che piu tardi in cielo e torto").25 For Zanzotto, "pappo" and "dindi" are, as emblematically as his "petel," the echolalia of "primitivized and primary things": these must be recaptured from their former existence in a lost beginning, but without hope that a single, all-seeing eye may be able to reflect their atomization: in in tu in

quale occhio-pupilla, piccola pupa, pappo e dindi, che trapungere, in che trapunto di omega renitente all'omega, che comedia col pappo, col dindi,

Ego-nepios autodefinizione in infanzia (teoricamente) da rendere effabile in effabilita senza fine From "Profezie ο memorie ..., VIII." Purg., XI:103-108, "What greater fame will you have if you strip off your flesh when it is old than if you had died before giving up pappo and dindi, when a thousand years shall have passed, which is a shorter space compared to the eternal than the movement of the eye-lids to that circle which is slowest turned in heaven?" 24

25

con tanta pappa-pappo, con tanti dindi-sissi, Ego-nepios, ο Ego, miserrimo al centro del mondo tondo26 The dialectical tension of Zanzotto's confrontation with Dante's universe illuminates not only the opposite direction of their journeys, but also the intellectual rigor they share in their understanding of "poetic function." In Dante's histori­ cal journey, amnesia functions as a rhetorical device to punctuate his approximation to the final vision: e cede la memoria a tanto oltraggio Un punto solo m'e maggior letargo e questo, a quel ch'i' vidi, e tanto, che non basta a dicer "poco."27 "Profezie ο memorie . . . , IX": "in what eye-pupil, tiny tot, 'pappo' and 'dindi,' / in what quilting, what omega quilt, / you, dodging the omega, / in what commedia, with pappo and with dindi, / . . . / Ego-nepios, / self-definition in infancy (theoretically), / to be made effable in effability / without an end / with a lot of pappapappo, / lots of dindi-sissi, / Ego-nepios, ο Ego, most wretched at the center of the round world." Zanzotto's note on this poem reads: "The Urfynd, the primordial child (see also Husserl), tries to come to a focus in an Ego which takes in from everything and everybody, but is never fully defined; its substance rests on a specific proto-remembrance: that of a caleche with its bells ('sissi'). . . . Such an ego is now attempting to deserve for itself the capital Έ.' 'Nepios' = 'infant' (but also 'foolish'); this version (ν-ήπιος from νη ίττοί) is being preferred to that of 'nipios,' which is more commonly found in such derivatives as 'nipiology' and 'nipiol' (a kind of baby food), because it maintains the resonance of its root connected with speech (the same as 'injans'—from 'jari'— in both Latin and Italian)." In the Dantean reference, "pappo" and "dindi" are baby talk, and stand respectively for, bread and/or food, and, money and/or bells. 27 Par., XXXIII: (1.57) "And memory surrenders in such plight"; (1.94) "One moment brings me deeper lethargy"; (11.122-23) "· · · 26 From

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In Zanzotto, for whom the structuring of signification is based on the un-historical polysemy of the sign, amnesia leads to aphasia, for the object of his "wordness" is the inef­ fable echolalia buried in the psychic patterns of the (lost) beginning: e questo spazio cosi oltrato oltrato . . . (che) questo oltrato questo oltraggio, sempre, ugualmente decedi verso nel tuo sprofondi brilli feroce inconsutile nonnulla28 But amnesia » aphasia is his rhetorical device for the open-ended structuring of his vision la gran cosa si sgrana, in sortita: ma il valore vedro, il valore davanti e alle mie spalle in uguale quiete-inquietudine.29 which may be contrasted with the historical consummation of Dante's journey: E' mi ricorda ch'io fui piu ardito per questo a sostener, tanto ch'i' giunsi l'aspetto mio col valore infinite.30 Compared to what I saw / To say its power is 'little' is to say too much." 28 From "The Elegy in petel": "and this space so beyonding yonding . . . (that) / . . . / this beyonding yondness, evenly ever"; from "Oltranza oltraggio": "deceasing towards, / in yours you plummet / cruelly glimmering, inextinguishable non-nothing." 29From "Possibili prefazi . . . , II": "the great thing shows its graininess as it dissolves: / but the value I shall see, the value before / and behind me in even quiet-disquietude." 3 0 P a r . , X X X I I I : y g - 8 i , "And I recall this further led me on, /

In calling Zanzotto "fabbro del parlar materno," I am purposely defying Montale's warning that "searching for [his] sources would be like looking for a needle in a hay­ stack."31 It is quite clear that the texture of Zanzotto's lan­ guage does not in any way resemble that of Dante. In fact, the examples already given indicate that Zanzotto resemanticizes Dante drastically: i.e., in a way not dissimilar from Dante's own resemanticization of Virgil. Even when he recalls Dante, say, at the phonematic level, the semantic context is such as to oppose assimilation. What Zanzotto does share with Dante, however, is an ecumenical view of the language of poetry as vehicle for social change. Dante is the only poet who could have said, literally, "Intanto voce fu per me udita" (Inf., IV:79)—by me but also through me—and the voice that is being heard by and through Dante is that of Homer, greeting the "return" of Virgil in Dante (I owe this insight, and much more, to Luigi Ballerini's La piramide capovolta [Venezia, Marsilio, 1975]). Dante "means" what he says and thus places his own persona at the very center of the Commedia. He is "autho­ rized" to speak simultaneously as "I" and "we" because he is not the Author of the poem. For him (as for Gorgias' psychagogue), inner poetic "fascination" (apate) is co­ extensive with outer rhetorical "persuasion" (peitho); his plurilinguism and admixture of styles is but the extrinsication of his "function" as a poet; the polytropism of God's ecclesia is resolved in the monotropism of the prophet-aspoet. The elliptical pattern of regression-progression imprinted in his word-Word, is the process by which man­ kind will be "restored" both to its socio-political and to its spiritual ends. In La Bella, the section following the Elegy is symptoWherefore my gaze more boldness yet assumed / Till to the infinite Good it last had won." 31 In Corriere della sera, June 1, 1968.

matically tided, "Prophecies, or memories, or bulletin boards," showing us the use to which Zanzotto intends to put the recovery of "petel" and/or the full acquisition of his system of signification. In this section (the book is curi­ ously structured like Dante's Vita nuova, with an equal number of poems preceding and following the Elegy, which stands at the center like the elegiacal canzone foretelling the death of Beatrice), number VIII, "Eva forma futuri," juxtaposes poetic "fascination" with rhetorical "persuasion": Eva, forma futuri. Ma ora il bello e il bello si fa sempre piu inquietabile, titillare e divezzamento, su ad altri centri, il bello punta al sublime, l'uccello giardiniere sbeccuzza e sceglie bello da bello e butta su, ahi mai ci arrivero, e: scontemplare smuovere da un fascino per riaffastellare in un altro fascino e: origine del cono sublimizzante Ah l'esplosione del significare del comporre per i bambini di Mezzaselva, Ah pedagogie! e poi tanto shopping tra tutte queste belle "I colori ti salvano" (dal commento di un esperto a un Rorschach) (ma che figura facevi nelle scenette di Rosenzweig...) Adam forma futuri.32 Recalling the Pauline context of "Adam forma futuri" ("Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's 32

From "Profezie ο memorie . . ., VIII."

transgression, who is the figure of him who was to come. But not as the offence, so also is the free gift"), let us con­ sider how Zanzotto first "restores" the prelapsarian begin­ ning in "Eva forma futuri," which however ("Ma ora") has degenerated into "il bello punta al sublime," in spite of the natural order ('Tuccello giardiniere sbeccuzza e sceglie / bello da bello e butta su"), and in spite of the poet's attempts to put together his "free gift" ("ahi mai ci arrivero / e: scontemplare smuovere da un fascino / per riaifastellare in un altro fascino"), until the pedagogical explosion ("del significare del comporre") ends for the chil­ dren of Mezzaselva in a shopping trip. If the so-called paraphrasable content is always inade­ quate, with Zanzotto, they say, it borders on the impossible. I should like to argue that Zanzotto "authorizes" any para­ phrase and that the preceding is admittedly my own. At any rate, the juxtaposition is there (as it is in all other poems, even though not always made thematically explicit), and I find the analogy the poem establishes between the decodification of a Rorschach test and the conditioning of language imparted by so-called pedagogy especially significant. (A recent essay by Zanzotto is titled, "Childhood, School, Mockschool.") It might be useful at this point to look again, and in con­ text, at the statement by P. P. Pasolini quoted at the begin­ ning: "The high frequency due to the alternation of styles is not, in Zanzotto, a device to hide or protect himself: rather, it results in abolishing all delimitation of semantic fields. You never know in what semantic field you are: the reader is put in an unprecedented condition of estrangement from his reading habits. In his protest—the protest of a man utterly disgusted with the world—Zanzotto not only rejects all semantic fields, but he even abolishes the semantic field of the absence of a semantic field." Even though this is not what Pasolini says, I read his statement to mean: Through the fabric of his work, Zanzotto "communicates" his own

estrangement from the world, thus causing the reader to become estranged from his reading habits; since he elimi­ nates the absence of "a" semantic field, however, he also causes the reader to change his reading habits and to join him in the process embodied in the work: Messo t'ho innanzi, ora snella t'appare la figura, scatta si confonde. Like Dante ("Messo t'ho innanzi, omai per te ti ciba": the omission of the second hemistich is just as important as the inclusion of the first),33 Zanzotto understands his poetic function to be the prefiguration of a new reality: the form ("figura") offered to the reader by the poet, leaps ("scatta") and merges ("si co»fonde"). The full utilization of analogism enables him to equate the imprints left in his private psyche—his "memories"—with those of the communal psyche—or "bulletin boards"—and to proffer them as "prophecies." Through the use of both metonymy and echolalia, his parole is structured according to principles that correspond—at least within his cultural \oine—to the form­ ation of speech, to patterns of semantization stemming from tensions common to his society. Consciously minimizing distinctive formal features and maximizing the options given to the reader, the in-tension of his perFORMance results in an ex-tension of his reader's competence. By embodying the form of change, the work projects itself as socio-linguistic realphabetization, as a "modulation of co-existence" (MerleauPonty), as a grammar by "speculation" rather than by "rule." Gino Rizzo January /975 38

Par., X:25, "I've served it up, now feed yourself."

Notes

Part I: Dietro il Paesaggio

Lorna There is a Holderlin epigraph to the section of Dietro il paesaggio from which this poem is taken: "Ihr teuern Ufer, die mich erzogen einst. ..."

Part II: Vocativo

River at Daybreak^ In a letter to the translators Zanzotto says of the word "digitate" that he sees the small columns that support the loggias' arches as fingers gripping the river's current, as though to hold it back.

If it were not "telaio": can mean "embroidery hoop." Z. uses it here to suggest a small round window.

Part III: IX Ecloghe

A Bool{ of Eclogues "butterflies": cf. Dante's "angelica farfalla" (angelic butterfly) Purgatorio, Canto X, 125; cf. also Purgatorio XII, 95.

Eclogue I The Laments of the Lyric Poets "Oh kites": a reference to Pascoli's well-known poem "L'Aquilone" ("The Kite"). "I do not curb my lips" ("le mie labbra non freno") : from the Latin "Ecce, labia mea non cohibui." See Psalm 39, verse 10. Lazarus: the beggar Lazarus of the Parable (Luke 16: 19-31), not the Lazarus raised from the dead. "cortese donna mia" ("my gracious lady"): almost a fixed for­ mula in the rhetoric of the poetry of gallantry. "sidera feriam vertice": a paraphrase of Horace, Odes, I a from Book I, meaning "I will touch the stars with my head, I will be exalted." "But I am nothing": a quotation from one of Z.'s own unpub­ lished poems.

Eclogue 111 Grape-Harvest "adyti": "adyta," slightly Italianized. "hierophany": the moment in which the divinity shows himself.

Eclogue IV Polyphemus, Phenomenological Bubble, Spring "pullus": here, "chicken embryo," "chick," but in the broader sense of nascent form.

"psychoid": with the value of "embryonic psyche," psyche in formation. "Ah, Sunday is always Sunday," like the quotation "I'd like to find new words" in the next stanza, is from a popular song. "cocci": "cocci," the plural of the Latin "coccus," a spherical cell, as those of the genus micrococcus (streptococcus, staphylococcus, etc.). There is a play here on "coccus" and the Italian "cocco": egg (oval forms).

Reflection-Reflex There is a deliberate ambiguity in the title. Z. indicates in a note that he is playing with another meaning of "riflesso": "condi­ tioned reflex." "alapa": Latin for "blow"; here as a manifestation of sacral violence.

Eclogue V "Lorna, gem of the hills" "Lorna, gem of the hills" is a slightly altered quotation of a real inscription on a wall in a small hill-town in Z.'s area. Lorna is a fictitious name; the real inscription reads: "Arfanta, gem of the hills." "Formosam resonare etc.": Virgil, Bucolics, I, 5; "teach the woods to resound with the name of the beautiful Amaryllis." "con miglior corso e con migliore stella": "with more propitious course, and with a more propitious star," cf. Paradiso, I, 40. "tarocchi": the cards with human figures, usually 22 in number, called "Triumphs" which, added to the other 56 cards (there are 14 in each suit: money, swords, staffs, chalices) make up the game of Tarocchi, played by 3 or 4 persons. The Bafietto is Hitler, the Baffone Stalin, the Crapone Mussolini. Rosolio is a light Italian liqueur much used in the past. The King of the Censers is the Pope.

"non avea catenella, non corona": "there was no chain or crown," words spoken to Dante by Cacciaguida in reference to an earlier Florence, sober and chaste. Cf. Paradiso, XV, ioo. "icosahedron": polyhedron of twenty faces. "oats": in the Miltonic sense of oaten pipes. "biologale": a Z. coinage to express the biological with sacral overtones. "rursus": again (Latin). The Renzo of Manzoni's I promessi sposi. "carte du tendre": map of an allegorical country imagined by 17th-century French novelists, in which people occupied them­ selves chiefly with love. On it one reads names like "the Lake of Indifference," "the River of Gratitude," etc. Eclogue VI Ravenna, Macromolecule, Ideologies "macromolecule": a large composite molecule. "humors": in the old physiological sense, the four body-fluids con­ ceived as determining by their relative proportions a person's health and temperament. "triboli": both spiny plants and tribulation; a play on words. "dystonia": disorder or lack of tonicity. "Malebolge": from Dante—the lower part of the Inferno. "sinks with the numen-poet": a reference to Dante, who is buried in Ravenna, numen being a god, divinity. Eclogue IX Scholastics "Montello": a hill near Asolo. "nai": "mi," which is "yes" in Greek. "sed tantum die verbo": See 8 Matt. 8: these are the words of the Centurion to Christ. They are also used to accompany the dis­ tribution of the Eucharist.

"del troppo e del vano": "of the too much and the empty"; cf. Paradiso, VI, 12, "D'entro Ie leggi trassi il troppo e Ί vano." "scotoma": medical term for blind spot in the visual field. Used here by Z. also in the sense of an eclipse of psychic vitality, as in depression. "morula": one of the first stages of the embryo in formation, a group of cells with a mulberry-like structure.

Epilogue Notes for an Eclogue "anancasma": the phenomenon by which a thought or gesture tends to repeat itself or to be repeated obsessively. "omentum": membrane which enfolds and supports. "O quale e quanto in quella viva Stella": cf. "Il quale e il quanto della viva stella," Paradiso, XXIII, 92. "integrating" and "limit": in the mathematical sense. "mente": a common adverbial ending. There is a play on words here since "mente" is "mind" in Italian, used here in the sense of reason.

Part IV: La Belta

The Perfection of the Snow "assideramento": literally "frost-bite," but there is wordplay here based on a partly distorted etymology. "Sideratus" is the malign influence of a star or planet. In this poem, however, Z. wants some positive overtones of the word. "soffolce": a word with Dantesque associations. See Paradiso, XXIII, 30. "lib. liberty": perhaps "libido," but moving toward another word. "id-vid": apropos of life understood as "ideare-vedere" ("ideatingseeing"), with a common root (cf. ιδ/Φιδ). Possible overtones of "Id" (in German "Es"). "Pronto": as so often happens in these translations, we lose Z.'s wordplay. "Pronto!" is the usual word for announcing one's presence at the end of a phone; one is ready to receive the mes­ sage. "Pronto" is also, simply, "ready."

Yes, the Snow Again "bambucci-ucci, odore di cristianucci": from an Italian fable. "we are a sign without interpretation": a variant of a phrase from Holderlin's "Mnemosyne." "evaso ο morto/evaso ο morta": the implications of Z.'s use of masculine and feminine cannot be conveyed in English. "glissate": used here in the sense of the musical glissando and also that of sliding or slipping away. "Cimbric gibberish": Z. says of "slambrot cimbrici" that the inhabitants of the Trent and Veneto regions refer thus to the dialects spoken by the very small groups erroneously thought to be of Cimbric origin, and isolated in the lower Alpine areas. The Cimbri were a people encountered by the Romans in Styria c. 113 B.C. They were related to their allies, the Teutones, but it is not known whether they were Gauls or Germans in race.

"umbra fuimus fumo e fumetto": a mixture of languages. The first two words are Latin for "we were shadow"; "fumo" and "fumetto" are Italian. There is a suggestion of the comic-strip ("fumetto") balloon issuing like smoke ("fumo") from the mouth. "truffaldini": after the character Trufialdo in a comedy by Gozzi. The word is commonly used to denote a swindler. "and the snow rose," etc.: verses of an old popular song. "clippety cloppety cl cl": recalls a line of Palazzeschi from his poem "La fontana malata." "sciences, languages and prophecies": cf. ι Cor. 13:8. "cronaca bianca nera azzurra": a play on words. In Italy "cronaca bianca" is news of births, marriages, etc.; "cronaca nera" is crimereporting. "Cronaca azzurra" does not exist. "water that swerves, etc.": from Z.'s poem "Al bivio" in Dietro il paesaggio.

To the Season "season": "stagione" derives from the Latin "statio," meaning a stop, halt. Here it means the non-flow but, since a season passes, Z. also intends the opposite. "stammering women": cf. Purgatorio, XIX, 769. Dante's stam­ mering woman symbolizes the sins of the flesh, purged in the three upper circles of Purgatory. See Dante Alighieri The Divine Comedy: Purgatorio: 2, Commentary by Charles S. Singleton (Princeton, 1973). "mummi": Z. has invented a masculine plural form of "mummia." "infinite": Z. is playing on both meanings of "infinito," "infinite" and "infinitive." "clio": Clio, the muse of history. "opus maxime oratorium": reference is to a Ciceronian definition of historiography. "far su": Veneto dialect for "avvolgere."

Adorations, Requests, Acouophonias "historiettes": history debunked, alluded to in the poem "To the Season," applied here to capsule histories, more like those of Tallemant des Reaux, referred to later on in this poem, than those of de Sade. "Story" also in the sense of "insignificant, ridiculous happening." "e 'vee paidi tut": Veneto dialect for "I had assimilated digested and expelled everything." To the World "sistere": Latin. It signifies here "to stand firmly on one's feet." "chance": is in French in the text. There is really no Italian equivalent. It means approximately "probability," "fortune," "luck." Baron Miinchhausen freed himself from the marsh, pulling him­ self up by his own hair. In an Idiotic Story of Vampires The poem is based on the Dreyer film. Against this suggestive background pass other spectres of "losses of blood" (physical and psychic, with reference to individuals and society) and of reinte­ gration, restitution, but perhaps, as in Section 7 of Part I, not totally serious. "Berenice": a reference to Poe. "Psicanalessi": psychotherapeutic drugs, mood-lifters. "avis": AVIS, the Associazione Italiana Volontari del Sangue, a voluntary blood-donor society. "moda parni Iaro tofra": well-known psychotherapeutic drugs, "allure": in the French sense of "bearing," "demeanor." The Elegy in Petel "Petel" is Veneto dialect for the caressing baby-talk mothers and nurses address to small children, with which they try to approxi-

mate the children's own talk. It is the "Ammensprache," the lan­ guage of wet-nurses. Petel is a pre-language and at the same time suggests the end of language and of poetry. In this latter sense it is exemplified by two fragmentary passages from Holderlin, already well on the way to total obscurity (from "Ihr sichergebauten Alpen," and from "Einst hab ich die Muse gefragt," trans­ lated as the last line of The Elegy in Petel: "Once I interrogated the Muse."). Petel remains an undefined field of expression that could no longer exist; unprotected in the sense that it has no formal struc­ ture. It is as though it had no beginning and were reluctant to come to a formal poetic conclusion. In this middle ground, end and beginning encounter and circumscribe the flowering of little sketches to which Z. refers in his allusion to Tallemant des Reaux and to the marvelous atomization of his "historic" gossipings, as well as to the paradaisical and comic-strip fantasy pornography of UHistoire d'O. "The absence of the gods": from a celebrated passage of Holderlin's, commented on extensively by Allemann and by Blanchot. "break-up": Z. says "almost an explosion, a fragmentation as seen in a slow-motion film." "the desire for fresh money," etc.: approximates an expression of the economist Di Fenizio. "tutto fa brodo": literally, everything makes broth, an old maxim meaning roughly "anything goes." "Non e vero che tutto fa brodo" is a singing commercial meaning "it's not true that any­ thing goes." "Scardanelli": the pseudonym Holderlin used to sign his mad poetry. L'Histoire d'O is by Pauline Reage. From "Prophecies or Memories or Bulletin-Boards" 111 The problems common to many mountain and hill areas in the process of being abandoned are seen here also from the point of

view of the farmer Nino. He is the last survivor (or almost the last) in the Dolle area, with his enthusiasms and his taste for the great rites, among which are suppers, drinking bouts, etc. These symposia, often documented on film-strips, are always philosophi­ cal for him, a theorist in many sciences but especially in selenog­ raphy, the science of the physical features of the moon, as well as an agricultural activist and prophet. "clinami": in the Lucretian sense, Z. says, of declivity, cleavage and climate ("declivio," "clivaggio" and "clima"). The Latin "clinatus" means "inclining," "leaning." "summit": summit conference, used here obviously in the ironic sense. "ombre": a Veneto word for glasses of wine, in quotation marks in the text to differentiate it from the Italian word meaning "shadows."

VIlI "Eve, form of the future": cf. reference to Adam in Rom. 5:14. "chromatics": almost colors and musical intervals together. "Renzi": Zanzotto coins an impossible plural. The reference is to the Renzo of 1 promessi sposi. "semantic," "phonematic": respectively, that which concerns meaning and that which concerns sound. "ikebana": a decorative composition of plants, flowers, roots, of Japanese origin. "Algol," "Vega," "Sol": names of stars, the sun included, "wholes": in the mathematical sense. "the children of Mezzaselva": the reference is to a well-known passage in School and life at Mezzaselva, by F. Socciarelli, in which is described the "explosion" of meaning in the infant mind. See pp. 116-17. "Rosenzweig's little sketches": a psychological test, as is the Rohr-

schach. The person being tested must identify with the protago­ nist in a series of sketches, choosing a possible line of conduct.

X "fantasy": in all the shades of meaning imparted to the word in psychoanalysis, the German "ur" fantasy, for example. "ostension": an ecclesiastical reference; the showing of the sacra­ ment on the altar that it may receive the adoration of the communicants. "Cryptogamia": a botanical term used in older systems of classi­ fication; a series or subkingdom embracing all plants not pro­ ducing flowers or seeds, contrasted with Phanerogamia. The reproductive organs of the lower plants being little-known in Linnaeus's period, and their morphological connection with those of the seed plants not being understood, the name was given in allusion to the supposed "secret" or "concealed" reproduction. Mushrooms and mosses fall into this category. "Phanerogamia": modern anatomical and physiological researches have shown the subordinate importance of floral structure in classification, and this term is passing out of scientific usage, though the derivative "phanerogam" is still used for convenience.

XI "thou": cf. Martin Buber.

XIII "ninine": a Friulian dialect diminutive for girl. It also refers to all small and graceful things. "fuia": a word found in Dante's Divine Comedy, derived from the Latin "fur," thief. "phobos": Greek for "phobia," "fear." "thaumazein": Greek for "to admire."

"-ude, -eri": from D'Annunzio's lines in his poem "La pioggia nel pineto": "Su Ie nostre mani ignude, Su i freschi pensieri." "-ine": probably the ending of "ninine."

XVl See note to III concerning abandoned land. "grassa": dialect of the region for "dung." "frescoes": in times of plague it was common practice to white­ wash church walls, covering over existing frescoes. Many are irrecoverably lost but periodically some are brought to light. Here the pictures are meant in the figurative sense of new forms of life surfacing from the mind. "terrain vague": city and suburban land still free of construction, with the sense of ambiguous and ill-defined area. "it's never too late to learn": a television rubric. "antimurine": from the Latin "mus," meaning "rat." "incelerazione": an invented word. "ducazio": also an invention, as is "ducaziale" below. "puteus": a reinforced well or pit in which is found evidence of modern times for archaeologists. "19000": a tribute to Morgenstern's "Im Jahre 19000," in the "Galgenlieder." "vitrovit": material which might perhaps deserve to exist, "gerarca": a Fascist term for a head agricultural official. "Bora": Trieste's fierce north wind. "adieu": in tribute to a popular song in Modugno's repertory. "fondo": meant here also in the agricultural sense of "holding," "piece of land."

XVlII The first two lines are from Tasso's Gerusalemme Liberata xii, 58, where Tancredi is fighting Clorinda, whom he mistakes for a man. In Edward Fairfax's famous 17th-century version, all in ottava rima, like the original, the lines are rendered thm: "Each other long beheld, and leaning stood Upon their swords, whose points in earth were pight." "a/hardenings of positions, c/e/n": quotations, some of them paraphrased, from an article "Escalation as a Strategy," by Her­ man Kahn, which appeared in Fortune, April 1965, illustrating the various degrees of escalation. This article was widely circu­ lated in flyer form and used in various ways in Italy. "Imparamenti": "learning," as rendered, but with a suggestion of learning by heart, "imparare a mente." "Ten thousand steel fragments": the action of a bomb now in use. "cereus in vitium flecti": Horace, Ars poetica. "bouches ventres reins": a reference to Histoire d'O by Pauline Reage. "acedia": from the Latin; sloth, tinged with melancholy; one of the seven deadly sins. "Mirage" and "Phantom": real planes, French and American respectively. The other two names are fictional and involve a play on words. "Vie" is both Italian for "ways" and the French "life." "Vite" is both "lives" and "vine" in Italian, and "quickly" in French. "fundus oculi": depths of the eye; important in the diagnosis of certain diseases. "fundus coelorum": depths of the skies. "pappi": plural of Italian "pappo," from "pappus," singular, Latin, botanical term for a calyx appendage variously adapted to secure dispersal of the fruit in certain seed plants by wind or other agencies.

"central-sanctuary threshold": a phrase from the aforesaid Kahn article, i.e. the limit constituted by an attack on the vital centers of a country. "paesaggito": a coinage. "Spasm or insensate war": this phrase, in English, is from the same Kahn article. "La mia paga, la mia paga!" ("Mes gages, mes gages"): Sganarello's last words in Moliere's Don Juan, after his master has dis­ appeared into the flames.

Part V: Pasque

Mysteries of Pedagogy "Reading Center": these centers are organized by the Minister of Public Education as places for continuing education, open to all— those of school age and adults. "Lume non e," etc.: cf. Paradiso, XIX, 64-65. "they go to the woods ... they sleep like logs": these phrases refer to the silkworms. Apple-trees in flower and silkworms at work indicate two different seasons. "non smessa in fioco": cf. Inferno, I, 63, "chi per lungo silenzio parea fioco." Dante's reference is to Virgil. "xenoglossia": a parapsychological phenomenon in which a sub­ ject expresses himself in one or more languages unknown to him under normal conditions. "glossolalia": first meaning is the coining, sometimes pathologi­ cal, of meaningless syllabic associations; second meaning is the presumed faculty of praying and praising God in a mysterious language. "desmat" (used jokingly): a dialect word for a game without stakes. "forty-day periods": a reference to indulgences granted by the Catholic Church for certain prayers that shorten the period souls must spend in purgatory. "knitting": Madame Defarge-like, knitting while heads rolled in the French Revolution. "quai" = "quale," as in epic poetry, meaning "such as," "as when."

Supraexistences "glisa," and later, "scardisce," are nonexistent verbs, coined for their onomatopoeia. "alea": Latin for a game of dice, of hazard; hence "chance," "risk," "uncertainty." "anacoluthic": lacking grammatical sequence.

Small Dar\-Lantern "mezz'oretta": from the Italian proverb, "da pasquetta una mezz'oretta." "acronie," "atopie": neologisms. "splitting/mirrors": to suggest an image repeated by a broken mirror. "Fordan": fictitious name for a peasant family. "filo": dialect. "s'immilla": used by Dante. See Paradiso, XXVIII, 93. "Neta," "Toni" (called "Toni-oci" because of his eyes, "occhi"): people dear to Z. and dead for many years. "vi'tu," "varda": dialect.

Feria Sexta in Parasceve "Feria Sexta": "Christian" Latin for the sixth weekday—here Holy Friday before Easter. "In Parasceve": in preparation; Latinized Greek. "minus 273": a molecule shrinks 1/273 with every degree of cold, until it can shrink no more—the stage of absolute zero, centi­ grade. "transfert": transfer in the psychoanalytical sense.

Codicil =: symbol for approximate congruence. "embricazione": "imbrication," an overlapping of edges like that of tiles or shingles, the scales of buds or fish. "wholeness": in the mathematical sense.

Books by Ruth Feldman and Brian Swann: The Collected Poems of Lucio Piccolo Shema: Collected Poems of Primo Levi Selected Poems of Andrea Zanzotto Other books by Brian Swann: Selected Poems of Tudor Arghezi (with Michael Impey) Primele Poeme/First Poems of Tristan Tzara (with Michael Impey) The Whale's Scars Likjng the S\y Roots The Lockert Library of Poetry in Translation George Seferis: Collected Poems (1924-1955), translated, edited, and introduced by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard Collected Poems of Lucio Piccolo, translated and edited by Brian Swann and Ruth Feldman C. P. Cavafy: Collected Poems, translated by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard and edited by George Savidis Benny Andersen: Selected Poems, translated by Alexander Taylor Selected Poetry of Andrea Zanzotto, translated and edited by Ruth Feldman and Brian Swann Poems of Rene Char, translated by Mary Ann Caws and Jonathan Griffin Selected Poems of Tudor Arghezi, translated and edited by Michael Impey and Brian Swann

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Zanzotto, Andrea, 1921Selected poetry of Andrea Zanzotto. (Lockert library of poetry in translation) Includes bibliographical references. PQ4851.A74A17 1975 I S B N 0-691-06290-0 I S B N 0-691-01323-3 pbk.

75-2990