POEMS
Eugenio Montale
THE HIDING PLACES II
I
The canebrake where I went to hide
was lapped by the sea when the waves were long
and only the foam got in, in dribs and drabs,
in that rehearsal of before and after the deluge.
Larvae tadpoles insects boxes without tops
even the frequent visits (one whole season)
of a hen with only one foot.
The canes sprouted their red plumes
in the proper season; beyond the garden wall
you could sometimes hear the flute-like song
of the solitary sparrow as the poet called it
but it was the variant ash-gray blackbird
that never has a yellow beak (I thought)
but makes up for it by singing
a theme I later heard again
on the gentle lips of a Manon in flight.
Wasn't it the flute of a lame hen
or another bird felled by a hunter?
I didn't think about it then
though the gun-rack at my house
displayed a muzzle-loading rifle
an unused weapon that once
had belonged to a crazy uncle .
Editor's Note: From the book
Otherwise: Last and First Poems ofEugenio Montale,
trans–
lated from the Italian by Jonathan Galassi, to be published by Random House.
Translation copyrightC 1984 by Jonathan Galassi. Reprinted by permission of Ran–
dom House, Inc.
