EUGENIO MONTALE
Rebecca
Every day I find myself coming up short:
I'm missing the total.
The items to be added are perfectly right,
but the overall total?
Rebecca watered her camels
and herself too.
I attend to pen and messki t
for myself and for others.
Rebecca was thirsty,
I'm
starved,
but we won't be absolved.
There wasn't much water in the wadi, a few puddles maybe,
and not much kindling in my kitchen either.
Still, for ourselves, for everyone, we tried, in smoke,
in mud, wi th a few live bi peds or even quadrupeds.
o
meek Rebecca whom I never met!
Hardly a handful of centuries divides us,
the twinkling of an eye for those who grasp your teaching.
Only the divine is total in sip and crumb.
Only death triumphs when you ask for both.
Translated from the Italian
by
William Arrowsmith
PETER SACKS
Night Ferry
Blood-drop, lung of fire setting past
the seabell and the wave; why am I separate
from that giant burrowing into further life?
The body breathes and rides
a heavy-netted ocean swollen
by the tide. Under the half-moon
