3:28 p.m. - 2004-03-08
Rivers
Rivers
Giuseppe Ungaretti
I cling to this mangled tree
Left to lie in the crevasse
That has all the indolence
Of a circus
Before or after the show
And I watch
The tranquil passing
Of clouds across the moon.
This morning
I stretched out
In an urn of water
And like a relic
Rested.
The Isonzo rushing
Polished me
As one of its stones.
I pulled
My bones together
And off I went
On the water
Like an acrobat.
I squatted down
Beside my clothes
Filthy with war and like a bedouin
I bowed to receive
The sun
This is the Isonzo
And here I best
Acknowledged myself
A pliant fiber
In the Universe.
My torment
Comes when
I think myself
Out of harmony. But those hidden Hands
That immerse me
Give me freely
An uncommon
Happiness.
I have gone
Through the stages
Of my life.
These are my rivers.
This is the Serchio
From which perhaps two thousand
Years of my own country folk
And my father and my mother
Have drawn their water.
This is the Nile
That saw me born
And saw me grow
In unawareness
On the expansive plains.
This is the Seine
And in its swirl I mingled
And I came to know myself.
These are my rivers
Tallied in the Isonzo.
This is my nostalgia
That in each of them
It comes to me
Now that night has fallen
That my life to me seems
A flower
Of shadows.
(Cotici, 16th August 1916)
