LINEA POETICA

tempo di lettura: 2 minuti

Da un eterno esilio
eternamente ritorno

e coi giorni mi volgo e mi confondo
vado, da me sempre più lontano,
divelto per erbe prati e tempi
d’ottobre
e silenzi confidati agli orecchi
da stelle e monti

Traduzione e commento di Giovanni Cerboni

From an eternal exile
I eternally come back

and with the days I turn and I muddle
further from me more, I go
overthrown for grasses, pastures and days
in October
and silences confided to the ears
by stars and mounts

When I read poetry I look for those verses that entwine me. In this poem by Zanzotto, published with his ‘Vocativo’, I got caught by the image of the mountains and the stars entrusting secrets.

When I was a kid, I would often spend the one hour drive between my grandparents village and my town looking at the stars in the dark night of the countryside. I remember the cold transparency of the window on my forehead.

Growing up, which is for me a synonym of living as of now, does indeed feel like being now thrown and now motionless, now among the sensuality of the grass and now in front of the sideral cold of the night sky. Among other things this poem talks of unfamiliarity, and how we experience it in the perfect cloister of our world.

Commento e traduzione di Efe Erçakir

Songs are always simple. They can be sung by anyone who has the ear for music. In any voice, any language, in a high pitch or low, in any key, with any accent, intonation, any driving emotion. What remains is the tune. And what matters is finding the voice for singing that tune. No small variance will demolish the tune unless the message is understood, the intention is genuine and the voice is true. Some spend their lives finding and mastering that voice, and to some it comes as easy as breathing. For most, it is a matter of good fortune to be led or not by a hint of such true voice, coming from the back of the head before they stand up to sing.  It is either their own voice, somebody else’s, or one that is too deep in, forgotten and crystallized in them that there is no use or need to locate their source. No matter, if one is lucky enough to grasp that hint, it is too fortunate to let it slip.

From an eternal exile

eternally returning

and with the days am turning, confusing,

going, ever far from me,

severed by the fields flowering and the October’s

passing

and the silences confided to the ears

by the stars and the mountains.

Trutat, Eugène: Paysage de montagne, le ruisseau

Trutat, Eugène: Lac en montagne