South Wind
1949
We’ve grown so hard,
pieces of ash-green rock
covered in barnacles and seaweed;
all around me flew a song
the smell of your body
a little higher, a little lower
almost one with the azure air.
Look, now I’ll come back to see the spring roads
the smoke merging with the little white clouds
of sunset
our small garden with its enormous suns...
Are your eyes really as large as they were
on the days when you disappeared
in your green sweater, in the big harbor?
How it seems to me as if it were yesterday
as if it were centuries, as if they never existed.
I am surrounded, almost free
at night the bare branches of the fig tree
point to me with your name
the shaken roots call me
Ostria, South Wind
every morning she’s waiting for me outside my door
with her ebony hair thrown over her shoulders.
How can I only forget you so completely
as if you didn’t exist
as if nothing existed beyond you....
* * *
I feel like the sun
as it caresses tired brows.
How can I get used to the fever of the eyes?
The seas encircle only our hearts,
there are no islands, no loneliness.
* * *
How can I forget myself so much,
become so much myself...?
You disappeared behind the tall freighter
as we glided into the big harbor
that was sinking, bright green, in your big eyes.
How to cry out when I don’t want to?
I was lost from every thought , every memory
I didn’t exist except in your imagination
except in my imagination where I didn’t exist any more.
And now I remember the last red carnation
in the violet carpet of the sky
among the thousands of shining points some light
must be protecting the quiet voices of your memories
(on the garden verandah your father is reading
his afternoon newspaper).
* * *
I sow myself in the trench of the sea
on whatever shores, whatever suns
my chain remains apart from me
I have no boundaries
to whatever suns, whatever winds
South Wind, South Wind
to the tired brows -- to the feeling of the sun
to the deep pain of nature -- to the fever of the eyes
to the bright green flag of humanity!
South Wind
We’ve grown so hard,
pieces of ash-green rock
covered in barnacles and seaweed;
all around me flew a song
the smell of your body
a little higher, a little lower
almost one with the azure air.
Look, now I’ll come back to see the spring roads
the smoke merging with the little white clouds
of sunset
our small garden with its enormous suns...
Are your eyes really as large as they were
on the days when you disappeared
in your green sweater, in the big harbor?
How it seems to me as if it were yesterday
as if it were centuries, as if they never existed.
I am surrounded, almost free
at night the bare branches of the fig tree
point to me with your name
the shaken roots call me
Ostria, South Wind
every morning she’s waiting for me outside my door
with her ebony hair thrown over her shoulders.
How can I only forget you so completely
as if you didn’t exist
as if nothing existed beyond you....
* * *
I feel like the sun
as it caresses tired brows.
How can I get used to the fever of the eyes?
The seas encircle only our hearts,
there are no islands, no loneliness.
* * *
How can I forget myself so much,
become so much myself...?
You disappeared behind the tall freighter
as we glided into the big harbor
that was sinking, bright green, in your big eyes.
How to cry out when I don’t want to?
I was lost from every thought , every memory
I didn’t exist except in your imagination
except in my imagination where I didn’t exist any more.
And now I remember the last red carnation
in the violet carpet of the sky
among the thousands of shining points some light
must be protecting the quiet voices of your memories
(on the garden verandah your father is reading
his afternoon newspaper).
* * *
I sow myself in the trench of the sea
on whatever shores, whatever suns
my chain remains apart from me
I have no boundaries
to whatever suns, whatever winds
South Wind, South Wind
to the tired brows -- to the feeling of the sun
to the deep pain of nature -- to the fever of the eyes
to the bright green flag of humanity!
