Translated from Italian by Don Stang and Helen Wickes
Cover art: Boris Yeghiazaryan “Crimea. Seashore in a fog” 2021, courtesy of Ukrainian painters’ exhibit in Padua
A SONG OF PEACE
To sing of peace
is surely
more difficult
than to sing of war,
because peace
is an absence full of breath,
while war
is a presence
that won’t let us breathe.
It is difficult, truly,
to sing of the qualities
of a non-occurrence.
Of a silent explosion
sowing more life
from within life.
Of the morning sun
warming the nest.
It’s easier to sing about
the fierce wind
that sweeps life away.
Fernando Pessoa
said that the sea is salted
with the tears
of Portuguese mothers.
Now there are those who want
to salt the earth as well
with strange weapons
that leave no bodies
to bury.
They resolve
the problem of enemies
by rendering them soluble,
dissolving them at once
so they vanish,
putting a quick end
to embarrassment and shame.
And again, and always, there will be
the tears of the mothers
washing the desert sands.
I keep asking myself:
what can I do today
for peace?
This milk,
this light,
which all my life
have silently
nourished and protected me?
I can do a little.
And hope it is enough.
Let me ask you a favor:
a moment before sleeping,
tonight,
hear your heartbeats,
the silence of your room,
feel the softness of the pillow.
Interpret that moment
as a metaphor of peace.
And I beg you,
even tomorrow morning,
a moment after awakening,
before getting up,
pay attention to how
this day of yours
is beginning.
It takes very little
to understand
what peace is,
even if it’s not
that easy to sing about.
And I can’t even ask you
to picture its opposite,
because just a few images like these
would be enough to ruin it.
My friends,
I admit to you,
it’s almost impossible for me
to express to you now
the subtle fragrance of that absence.
That absence can’t defend itself,
can’t find words
within itself.
It’s a clean slate
on which we can write
whatever we want.
We can fill it
with our joy
and our loves,
with the doodles of children
or with other songs of peace.
But someone,
within our sacred space,
wants to set up
a miniature model
of hell.
Though miniature is hardly
what it will be…
So
the song of peace
must be a song of invitation:
let us learn to know
this absence as a fullness,
and let us defend
this absence which breathes,
this everyday breeze of freedom.
Because
at the heart of this space,
at the center of this absence,
are all of us,
quietly existing.
There’s this tangle
of life
that wants nothing more
than to be left
in peace.
Lucca, 24 October 2002
Previously published in El-Ghibli, 5 March 2015. This poem was presented for the first time during the Forum Sociale Europeo, in
Florence, Italy in 2002.
Canto alla pace
El-Ghibli 5 Marzo 2015
Cantare la pace
è senz’altro
più difficile
che cantare la guerra,
perché la pace
è un’assenza che respira,
mentre la guerra
è una presenza
che non ci lascia respirare.
È davvero difficile
cantare le virtù
di un non-evento.
Di un’esplosione silenziosa
che da dentro la vita
semina più vita.
Del sole mattutino
che riscalda il nido.
È più facile cantare
il vento forte
che lo spazza via.
Diceva Fernando Pessoa
che il mare è salato
dalle lacrime
delle madri portoghesi.
Ora vogliono salare
anche la terra
con strane armi
che non lasciano corpi
da seppellire.
Fanno tornare polvere
istantaneamente
i solubili nemici,
perché finiscano presto
l’imbarazzo e la vergogna.
E ci saranno ancora e sempre
le lacrime delle madri
a lavare la sabbia del deserto.
Insisto a chiedermi:
Cosa posso fare oggi
per la pace?
Questo latte,
questa luce,
che per tutta la vita
mi ha nutrito e protetto
in silenzio?
Posso fare poco.
E spero che basti.
Posso chiedervi un favore:
un attimo prima di dormire,
stasera,
sentite i battiti del vostro cuore,
il silenzio della stanza,
la morbidezza del guanciale.
Interpretate quel momento
come una metafora della pace.
E vi prego,
anche domattina,
un attimo dopo il risveglio,
prima di alzarvi
fate attenzione
a come sta cominciando
questa vostra giornata.
Basta poco
per capire
cos’è la pace,
anche se non è
per niente facile cantarla.
E non posso nemmeno chiedervi
di immaginare il suo contrario,
perché bastano poche immagini così
per danneggiarla.
Amici miei,
vi confesso,
è quasi impossibile per me
rendervi ora
il profumo sottile di questo vuoto.
Il vuoto non sa difendersi,
non trova parole
dentro di sé.
È una lavagna pulita,
e su di essa possiamo scrivere
quello che vogliamo.
Possiamo riempirla
con la nostra gioia
e i nostri amori,
con gli scarabocchi dei bimbi
o con altri canti di pace.
Ma qualcuno,
dentro il nostro sacro spazio,
vuole allestire
un modello in miniatura
dell’inferno.
Che tanto miniatura
non sarà…
Allora,
il canto alla pace
dev’essere un canto d’invito:
impariamo a conoscere
questo vuoto pieno,
e difendiamo
quest’assenza che respira,
questa quotidiana brezza di libertà.
Perché
nel fondo di questo vuoto,
al centro di quest’assenza,
ci siamo tutti noi,
discretamente.
C’è un groviglio
di vita
che non vuole altro
che essere lasciato
in pace.
Lucca, 24 Ottobre 2002
* Questa poesia è stata presentata per la prima volta durante il “Forum Sociale Europeo”, realizzato a Firenze nel 2002.
Spurious Regeneration*
Loquaciously, bodaciously,
procrastinate, profligate,
not some old nerd, that mockingbird
(tell me,
how much do they please you,
these words?).
Frankincense, fraudulence,
fraternize, bowdlerize,
progenitor, profiterole,
anecdote, row that boat
(but tell me now
how much you enjoy
my Italian lingo!).
Troublemaker, tension-breaker,
stupendous, pretentious,
pituitary, constabulary,
planetary
(how much it amazes you,
all this vocabulary!).
Preposterously,
peevishly, previously,
turn off the lights, take a few bites,
parthenogenesis, sort of like Pegasus,
prosthesis, Prometheus
(how strong they are,
these foreign words!).
Buccaneer, play by ear,
race you to the station, regeneration,
metaphor, petit four
(and I am entertained
even more).
Antediluvian games
middle of the nighttime,
turn on a dime, all out of rhyme
(but now I
have grown a little tired).
Down to the bone, testosterone,
estrogen, where have you been,
easy on the eyes, ventriloquize
(I sleep and then,
as always, I dream these words again,
in Portuguese).
*[Translators’ note: This poem is not readily translatable into English. Julio was a master
of word play, and here he takes great joy in the rhymes, consonance, and
assonance possible in Italian. Our version is a relatively free
adaptation, capturing his sense of humor and sense of sound, while
keeping the playful, strange nature of the poem. We translated the last
lines of each stanza literally, as they act as a chorus, grounding you
for a few breaths before returning you to the dance.]
Palingenesi fasulla
Borborigmo birbantello.
Procacciatore. Progenitore.
Profittatore. Profiterole.
(dimmi un po’,
quanto ti piacciono
le parole?)
Fatterello, mulinello,
turbinio, risucchio,
pescecane, pisciacane,
marzapane, piantagrane
(ma quanto ti piacciono
le parole italiane!)
Tarassaco, talabalacco,
fuorisacco, culdisacco,
maghetta, magagna,
magari
(quanto ti stupiscono
i vocabolari!)
Pupazzo,
pompetta, pompelmo,
tafferuglio, baruffa,
buchetta, bucaniere,
carboniere, carabiniere
(sono fortissime
queste parole straniere)
Cocomero, cucuzzolo,
cuccagna, culatello,
colbacco, perbacco
(anch’io mi diverto
un sacco)
Giochetto antelucano,
nottetempo,
battifianco, nondimanco
(ma ora sono
un poco stanco)
Pipistrello, polentone,
palpatina, palmatoria,
palmarès o pince-nez
(dormo e poi,
come sempre, le sogno
in português)
Tracings*
“Everything that rises
must converge,”
someone wrote.
But up there
a strong wind is blowing,
and whatever rises
disperses.
In the same way,
everything that collapses
must converge
into the void.
For of all the magnetic forces,
emptiness is the strongest
point of convergence,
the irresistible seduction
out of chaos for a tired humanity.
Half-curious and half-powerless,
we follow the blueprint
of the ascending
and descending lines
on the graph paper
of time.
The paper is transparent,
and the pencil copies
a pathway already drawn
on the mysterious layer
underneath—
the pattern
that shows us converging
or dispersing,
our paths merging or plummeting.
The Final Judgment
is a story of convergence
that distracts us from death,
the ultimate dispersal.
Even the idea of destiny
tries to push us
away from dispersal.
But the pattern beneath
may not agree,
and the hand
may scribble arrows,
circles, spirals.
“Everything that rises
must converge”
instead seems to be a metaphor
about love.
(Exiled from love,
we resigned ourselves
to metaphors
about love.)
The endless return,
the cycle of life,
parallel lines
that meet at infinity
are among the possible choices.
We can honor in a thousand ways
the changes
that terrorize us.
But there is only one way
to confront the confusion:
let everything descend
or rise
and ourselves remain steadfast,
the center of a sparkling globe
with no surface.
While everything revolves,
rises, falls,
and mingles,
as within the body
of Jupiter
or of Saturn,
our serene core
harbors a single idea:
silence,
purity,
stillness.
This poem was first published in Catamaran, summer 2019 (v. 7, issue 2, p. 26).
[Translators’ note: The title Everything That Rises Must Converge refers to a work by the French philosopher Pierre Teilhard de Chardin titled the “Omega Point“:[3] “Remain true to yourself, but move ever upward toward greater consciousness and greater love! At the summit you will find yourselves united with all those who, from every direction, have made the same ascent. For everything that rises must converge.“]
Tracce
“Tutto ciò che si erge
deve poi convergere”,
è stato detto.
Ma lassù
soffia un vento forte,
e tutto ciò che si erge
si disperde.
Allo stesso modo
tutto ciò che precipita
deve poi convergere
nel nulla.
Di tutte le forze magnetiche
il nulla è il punto
di convergenza più forte,
l’irresistibile seduzione
del caos sull’uomo stanco.
Tra curiosi e impotenti
seguiamo il tracciato
delle linee ascendenti
e discendenti
sul foglio a quadretti
del tempo.
Il foglio è trasparente
e la matita copia
un tracciato già pronto
sul misterioso foglio
di sotto,
il disegno che ci fa convergere
o disperdere,
confonderci
o buttarci.
Il Giudizio finale
è un racconto di convergenza
che ci distrae dalla morte,
l’ultima dispersione.
Anche l’idea di destino
prova a spingerci
lontani dalla dispersione.
Ma il foglio di sotto
potrebbe non esserci
e la mano
scarabocchiare frecce,
circoli, spirali.
“Tutto ciò che si erge
deve poi convergere”
sembra piuttosto una metafora
sull’amore
(esiliati
dall’amore
ci rassegnammo
alle metafore
sull’amore.)
L’eterno ritorno,
il ciclo della vita,
le linee parallele
che s’incontrano all’infinito
sono altre scelte possibili.
Possiamo celebrare in mille modi
gli spostamenti
che ci terrorizzano.
Ma c’è un solo modo
per affrontare la vertigine:
lasciare scendere
o salire ogni cosa
e rimanere fermi,
centro di una frizzante sfera
senza superficie.
Mentre tutto gira,
sale, scende,
e si confonde,
come nella carne
di Giove
o di Saturno,
il nostro nucleo
rasserenato
ospita un’unica idea:
silenzio,
purezza,
immobilità.
Julio Monteiro Martins (born in Brazil in 1955 and died in Italy in 2014). Honorary Fellow in Writing” at the University of Iowa in the United States, he taught creative writing at Goddard College in Vermont (1979-82), at the Oficina Literária Afrânio Coutinho, Rio de Janeiro (1982-91), at the Instituto Camões, Lisbona (1994) and at the Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro (1995). Between 1996 and 2000 he held courses in several Tuscan cities. He was among the founders of the Brazilian Partito Verde and of the environmentalist movement “Os Verdes”. As a defender of human rights in Rio de Janeiro, he guaranteed the safety of the meninos de rua. In his country of origin he has published nine books, including short story collections, novels and essay, among which are Torpalium (Ática, São Paulo 1977), Sabe quem dançou? (Codecri, Rio 1978), A oeste de nada (Civilização Brasileira, Rio 1981) and O espaço imaginário (Anima, Rio 1987). In Italy he has published Il percorso dell’idea (petits poèmes en prose, with original photos by Enzo Cei, Vivaldi & Baldecchi, Pontedera 1998), as well as the short stories collections Racconti italiani (Besa, Lecce 2000), La passione del vuoto (Besa, Lecce 2003), L’amore scritto (Besa, Lecce 2007). and the novel madrelingua (Besa, Lecce 2005) . His story L’irruzione was included in the anthology Non siamo in vendita – Voci contro il regime (edited by Stefania Scateni and Beppe Sebaste, with a forward by Furio Colombo, Arcana Libri / L’Unità, Roma 2002). His poetry collection La grazia di casa mia was published by Rediviva in 2014 and many of his poems have been published in various literary journals, including the international three-monthly “Pagine” and the online magazine “El Ghibli”, as well as in the anthologies I confini del verso. Poesia della migrazione in italiano (Florence, Le Lettere 2006) and A New Map: the Poetry of Migrant Writers in Italy (Los Angeles, Green Integer 2006). He was the creator of the event “Scrivere Oltre le Mura”. He lived in Tuscany from the early 2000’s to 2014 where, besides teaching Portuguese and literary translation at the University of Pisa, he directed and taught the Fiction Workshop in the Masters program of the Scuola Sagarana in Lucca, and was editor in chief of the online literary magazine, “Sagarana”. His posthumous publications in Italian include La macchina sognante (2015), and the novel L’ultima pelle (2019). Many of his poems have appeared in English translation by Helen Wickes and Don Stang in a number of US print and online journals.
The translators: Donald Stang is a longtime student of Italian. His
translations of Italian poetry have appeared or are forthcoming in
Carrying the Branch, by Glass Lyre Press, Silk Road, Pirene’s Fountain,
Mantis, Newfound, Catamaran, Ghost Town, Blackbird, Apple Valley Review,
Apricity Magazine, America, We Call Your Name: Poems of Resistance and
Resilience by Sixteen Rivers Press, and thedreamingmachine.com.
Helen Wickes’ work appears in AGNI Online, Atlanta Review, Boulevard,
Massachusetts Review, Slag Review, Sagarana, Soundings East, South
Dakota Review, Spillway, TriQuarterly, Westview, Willow Review, ZYZZYVA,
thedreamingmachine.com (poems and translations of Italian poetry), as
well as many others. Four books of her poetry have been published.
