Poetry by Amelia Rosselli

Translated by Diana Thow from Italian

Collapse

Fallen snowflakes serve
as a wish for a lightless life, and
their dance is all a farce, because
we havenÕt lit the lights.

Evil seeps below arduous
fountains, strong with its strong ambition,
like the wind it moves mouthfuls of snow.

Wisdom is rigor mortis . . . rigging
the game is safer than this squallish
state of being lost and found along the roads of
reason . . . .

The snowy sky is immobile as if warning against
a grand immobile servitude. The
snow has nearly stopped hoping.

"In the black star of my destiny . . ."

In the black star of my destiny
I have something that isn't this
versifying for good ladies or knaves
or deluded spent silent stars
or the hoarse vanity of being among the first
pointed out.

Atop the ship's swaying arbor
that adapted well to each wind
and returned ever quietly,
you repent.

But now you've magnificently chosen
your luck: drawing from the draw
an imaginary kiss, all
a trail of distinctions, vague
and elephantine.

Straight into the muddy void
never raise your voice, truly: when
pausing near your passion
you burned it.

Born in Paris in 1930, Amelia Rosselli was one of the most important experimental Italian poets of the 20th century. A widely lauded poet in Italy, she committed suicide in 1996 on the anniversary of Sylvia Plath's death. Diana Thow recently completed her M.F.A. in literary translation at the University of Iowa with a thesis on Amelia Rosselli and is currently living and researching in Italy as a Fulbright scholar. She has published her work in Carte Italiane, Mare Nostrum, 91st Meridian, Words Without Borders, and others.