even now are you,
and lovely. Signs
of those years of grief solder
our spirits into one. And behind
the extremely black hair that I curl
round my fingers I fear no longer the little
white pointed demoniac ear.
TRIESTE
I have walked through the whole city,
then scaled a slope
populous at the start, deserted farther on,
enclosed by a low wall:
a nook in which to sit
alone; and it seems to me that where it ends,
the city ends.
Trieste has a quarrelsome
grace.
If
you like it,
it's a tough little kid, with hands too large
to offer flowers;
it's like a jealous
love.
From this slope I can see every church
and every road, whether it leads to the encumbered beach
or to the hill at whose stony top the last house
clings.
A strange air circulates about
everything, a tormenting air,
native air.
For me my city, lively in every part,
has made a nook, and for my shy,
thoughtful life.
Umberto Saba
(translated by Lynne Lawner)
