Friday, November 13, 2020

RE-READING GIOVANNI PASCOLI ~









Birthplace



Dream of a summer day.



Limitless cicadas

trilled and quivered.

Wind from the north

whipped crumpled leaves

through a line of trees.



Sun fell between elms

in strips of dust:

From the sky, two clouds

hung threadbare:

white brushed



across wide blue air.



Tamarisk shrubs,

pomegranate trees, the far

throb of a threshing machine

and the silvery swell

of the evening call to prayer. . .



Where was I? The bell

for the prayer said where,

in tears, while a dog

bayed at a stranger

who walked by, head bowed.





_________________
Giovanni Pascoli
Selected Poems
translated by Taije Silverman with
Marina Della Putta Johnston
Princeton 2019 






Tell me you don't have the outdoors circulating through you