from Ronda dei conversi (1999-2004)
Translated from the Italian by Richard Dixon
Memory, vestige
I have been here, in the dark hermitage
of deceptive and distressing aspect
in the corridor that ended up
each time in a dead end
the light always outside, basted
over the houses in front
and the gaze that appeared there
turned again over a nothing
he who was living
did not see his witness...
in the evening ravine it comes back to me
like a purgatory
in which I was
once oblivious
in which I will
one day share
Last analysis
and so, looking back behind me
into the mist of the temporal no
if it has served some purpose
if something has left its mark
the cry raised in the hidden day
the calm and converted cry
toward the yes
After
I saw dawn after the battle
over a dark rock
the first light lay the valley bare
to inside the burnt-out house
nor did the sob of the body know
if it was still in the field...
the glimmer confused every path
its hold on the world, on itself...
all was a single wave
all was pain
Beyond
peering at the end of the road when this
becomes a delta, a point to head toward,
he literally shudders...
the part he has travelled rapidly turns to moss, the sacrifice
is deep down in a bottle... and the edge toward the humped paths
dwindles more and more...
there’s no more time and there’s no more than a beginning
among thick canebrakes and shadows perhaps human
Eugenio De Signoribus lives in the Adriatic coastal town of Cupra Marittima, in Italy’s Marche region, where he was born in 1947. His first poems, published in 1971, were followed by Case perdute (1989), Altre educazioni (1991), Istmi e chiuse (1996), Principio del giorno (2000), Ronda dei conversi (2005), Trinità dell’esodo (2011), Stazioni (2018), L’uscita (2022), and Nel villaggio oscuro (2023). His many awards include the Premio Viareggio in 2008 (for Poesie 1976-2007).
Richard Dixon lives and works in Italy. His translations include works by Giacomo Leopardi, Umberto Eco, Roberto Calasso, Carlo Emilio Gadda, Antonio Moresco, and Paolo Volponi. His translations of Italian contemporary poets have appeared in many publications.
World Poetry Review 