Five poems from Allegria

LEVANT

The line

of haze dies

at the far circle of the sky

Clacking of heels clacking of hands

and the clarinet with its shrill flourishes

and the sea is ashen

and trembles gently

swollen with an amorous wave

restless as a pigeon

In the stern Syrian emigrants dance

in the prow a man leans against the rail

he seems a shadow

Saturday evenings at this hour

Jews

back there

carry away

their dead

and in the snail-shell

whorl

of alleyways

you see

only the tottering

of lamps

in crape

They seem to rise as if through murky water

like the racket from the stern that I hear

here in the shadow

of

sleep

NIGHT IN MAY

The sky puts

garlands of little lights

atop the minarets

AT EASE

Who will go with me through the fields

The sun sows itself in diamonds

of water drops

on the pliant grass

I yield

to the drift

of the serene universe

The mountains swell

with sips of lilac shadow

and scull with the sky

Up in that weightless vault

the spell breaks

And I plummet inward

And I hide in one of my nests

Versa, April 27, 1916

BROTHERS

What’s your regiment

brothers?

Word trembling

in the night

like a newborn

leaf

In the tortured air

the reflexive revolt

of a man aware of his own

fragility

Brothers

Mariano, July 15, 1916

PILGRIMMAGE

Hunkering

in these bowels

of rubble

hour on hour

I have dragged

my carcass

worn by mud

like a boot sole

or like a seed

of hawthorn

Ungaretti

man of pain

all you need for courage

is one mirage

Over there

a searchlight

sets a sea

into the fog

Lone Tree Gully, August 16, 1916

Allegria is forthcoming from Archipelago Books. Printed here with permission from publisher.

Image by Antonio Carrau.