Let the night that is falling cover the snow also."
"What then?" She smiles , "How should I know?
'I do not regret this last journey; we took risks .
Eugenio Montale
NEWS FROM AMIATA
The bad weather's fireworks
will be a murmur of beehives late tonight.
Worms have gnawed the room's
rafters, and a smell of melons
pushes up from the floorboards. The soft
puffs of smoke that climb a valley
'"
of elves and mushroom up to the peak's transparent
cone cloud my windowpanes,
and yet I write you from this place, this faraway
table, from the honeycomb cell
of a globe launched into space-
and the covered cages, the hearth
where chestnuts explode, the veins
of saltpeter and mould are the frame through which
you'll soon break. The life
that fables you is still too brief
if it contains you! Your ikon discloses
the luminous background. Outside, it's raining.
Editor's Note: "News from Arniata" is translated from the Italian by William Arrow–
smith. The Italian text is from
Selected Poems
by Eugenio Montale. Copyright
C
1948,
1949, 1957 by Anoldo Mondadori Editore, printed by permission of New Directions
Publishing Corporation.
