Hear how the wavering jet
of a violin among the palm-trees is
choked off when thunder
rolls over wi th a clanging of struck
sheet-iron; but the storm is mild as
the dog-star bursts white
in the blue sky and the pouring dark
wi thdraws; the lightning flash that spli ts it
stretches branches like a precious tree
in air that grows red, and the timbal
of the gipsies throbs without sound.
Go into the depth of that hurrying shadow
that changes noon into a night
of lit lamps along the water's edge
swinging from invisible standards,-
beyond, where sea and sky have become one blackness,
the wink, only, of acetylene
from the anchored boats-
until the sky shakes,
explodes into drops, the ground steams as it drinks,
everything churns about you, wet awnings
flap, a rustling passes over the earth like a giant comb,
and the paper lanterns, squeaking,
flatten themselves on the pavement.
And so, lost among the dripping mats
and wicker chairs, yourself a pulled-up reed
that trails slimy roots exposed at last,
you shake
wi
th life and shrink
towards a void full of voice full of lamenting, gasping.
But the old wave throws itself over you
like a net, and again
everything reclaims you, street arcade
walls mirrors
fix
you
in the frozen union of a dead multi tude,
and if you feel a touch, hear a word
at your side in this dissolving hour, Arsenio,
maybe it is the witness of a
stifled life that the wind
sweeps into the ashheap of dead stars....
Translated from the Italian
by
Millicent Bell
