Traduzioni:  
JOY AND MOURNING (trad. Susan Silbermann, Press OnLine, 2002)
JOY AND MOURNING (trad. Pádraig J. Daly, Dedalus Press, 2004)
ISBN 1-904556-15-9
(www.dedaluspress.com)

The turning on
and turning off
(by accident?) of life,
the luminous track
the trail
that what has been
leaves behind,
loved and known
to be lost,
joy and mourning :
fallen, all,
into the blind jar
into the arms of darkness.
The trace, withered
yet revived,
of every thing.

So run-down and
devastated : he, rejected
lost on the streets,
he, a drughead. Lost, now,
even in his bed
curled
in a white sheet
worn out and surrendered there,
turned on his side.
Become half and less
of himself,
dried up inside his clothes
made old and feeble
in the flower of his
youth, in the fullness
of a life already withered.
Inert to everything
and with no grip on anything
not even
on the pale light
of day. Blood of her
womb, flesh of her flesh,
while she sits bent over
the silent bundle,
she lies nearby
striving to help him
to peace at last.
"Beloved son, whatever
you have been", the wail
held and then released
in the silence that
precedes the fall.

It hunts
the youngest among us,
ruins
the strong ones, makes
fun of them
teases them and then
crushes them, has no
regard for merit
or age, drags
its chosen victims to the depths
pillages and plunders,
sinks
its claw only into
those it desires. The roles
are reversed now :
fathers bury their
sons, take care of
their lost lives,
hold them wounded
in their arms,
watch them dying, no more
fearing powerless
witness the agony and,
crying, feel them
snatched away.


Rushing in spate
Whirling and tumbling
…come and gone
lost and found
passed away, things,
seen and vanished…
Oh, what a dark and dull
morning is dawning
beaten and
silent to the wind
on the stage of the world.

"What happens
away from here
doesn't affect me.
I'm different now
from other people,
my road has diverged from
the others ,
I'm excluded
from life and I can hardly
take possession ,
dismissed without recourse.
I feel lost
in the bustle
of people
in this full basket
that is my room
and the reason
is that
a yawning gap
has suddenly
opened up
between me
and the things around me
and nothing
can cross it.
What is it? What can I do?
I keep looking into
my conscience
but I can't help it now,
I can't go beyond its curtains
of emptiness and substance
of my already been.
There's no return,
perhaps, from the end."

The sickness, consuming him
step by step,
has eroded and
shortened him
bringing him back to the
dependent state
of a child.
With the same manner
he had then,
he sees his father,
once so distant,
now newly omnipotent
and to him now,
ready to do anything
to stem
the furious assault
that attacks him ,
with eyes
lost and transparent
longing for comfort
and relief from the torment
full of fear
still asking
begging
to be saved.

…the motion
in its slow state,
the short breath
of the living
at the moment of passing
beyond, on the point
of being
reduced absent…

"I'm being exiled
in stages, by the world,
in bits and pieces
gradually gnawed away,
deprived of voice and
strength to act,
separated and excluded
from the natural context.
It has already betrayed me
becoming,
from the lover it was,
my cruel and ruthless
personal enemy.
Here inside the jail
I alone remain confined
to artificial custody
while everyone
else, friends,
doctors and nurse,
have another life outside,
leaving the hospital
for them the field
is open and unlimited
wherever they want.
I know that I will no longer
be part of the crowd,
I feel it from the chorus
of encouraging speeches,
in the intermittent flash
of those who gaze at me uncertainly
and - the hardest
and most painful thing -
from the crack
in the dull words
of my mother."

Anger and fear
despairing and desperate
discomfort, rightly
or wrongly, tumult
and fury in revolt
grasped and already drifting
headlong
no longer concealed
for ever
the occasion.

Again so harmless
and defenceless
like a baby,
needing care
and sleep,
fed, taken care of
watched over
in every single instant
and movement.
Once again, now,
I am struck by the same fear
I often had then
and there's nothing
that is not alarming
and that doesn't make me wonder,
regarding his present state
if he hears me
if he's hot or cold
if he's in pain
if he breathes
or if he's wet.

I see him again here
just born,
as if it were now.
I was unable
to manage him
and embarrassed even
to hold him.
Source of anxiety, I was,
and nervous
about stirring him up
to making him lively,

him being so peaceful.
Step by step intruder
and by myself
excluded from the routine
of food and diapers,
then losing
balance and
ending up feeling
diminished,
floundering about
on his borders.


"As a child, I believed
I wasn't wanted.
I'd come to disturb
a measure not even
able to last,
handled with fear
or just tolerated.
I felt I was
Always unheard.
I grew up at random
in a strange way :
father impatient
distant in being
always so close,
mother nervous
and bossy
in assuming me hers
in the palm of her hand,
thinking about everything
owner of my dreams
wanting to cherish
with her care only
my desires
and my needs."

Tearing away one whom you love
from the heart of the flesh
where he is nested
is like uprooting
an oak from the earth:
it sinks its branches
in the hidden layers,
the obscure capillaries
reaching down to seek
support and nourishment.
But no sudden thrust
no matter how violent
can ever rip out
the innermost roots.
The hurtling force
that grasps it
shakes its bases
and dislodges it from its center,
breaks and shatters
entire slices, wrenches loose
many of its arms
left there suspended
in the fall
of its dark beards
and brings up
with its filthy part,
with the rotten
and purulent matter,
with the decay the purity,
a blessing that has penetrated
into its lowest depth
rooted in the most
distant emptiness,
where life
clings holding out
against all theft or error.


"There's nothing more
for me to do,
despite the efforts
and repeated confirmations.
And those who assist me
night and day
are far away,
fallen into the present .
I've felt no benefit
from the treatments,
nor will there be any
in the immediate
or far future.
I feel the silent care,
the sad gayety
of the nurse
and the shows of affection
of all my relatives around me,
eyes red from crying
as they turn, in silence,
to hide from me
their predictions
and the desperate state
of my health,
uselessly
because in any case
I am fully aware
of its gravity.
We're losing
reciprocal chances
for the little time that is left
and before I'm prevented
I want to come back home
and stay in my bed,
in the places that are
familiar to me.
To change
from pain into comfort
perhaps ever celebration
these people
lying for love".

Safe harbor and
hinge of the day
which turns greedily
its banks broken
in a dive into the well
in the midst of the waves
in the bottom that dazzles
while it fades
that lies and flies
surrendered and rebellious
descended and risen
to the avernus to the stars
collapses derails
frore and flare
with lost weight
that rams and jumps
bends and capsizes
rides and strives
on his heart a stream
of a peaceful night
to the closed edge
may it hold
contained conducted
below above.
That he be protected
that he be covered…

It is the other face
left in the shadow
of life, the prevailing
part yet ignored
in seeming contrast
to the law, pole and
magnet that on the ground
attracts the bodies
carries them in her arms
holds them sustains them
base and pedestal
for what has been laid down
abandoned and, yes, reduced
to the pure state…
that informs, however,
and moves the world
having imposed
a break on the way
a pause in the motion
for a better run-up :
podium and springboard.


The flower of life
hardens well before
it's mellow
and pours from its small top
its raw display
of piercing thorns.
He's too tired
to look ahead
- blinded by even the feeblest
glimmer - and to continue
there at the end of his bed
to fight for his future
defending himself from
an enemy. The battle
is lost, without regret.
Turned on his side
against the wall
he finds it hard even
to breathe. Up
from the lump that weighs
in his chest,
no matter what fold
he smoothes, he feels
only the desire
to remain at the mercy
of dark river that,
drowning, sweeps him away.


Why on earth
didn't I force myself
earlier
to understand ?
It's my fault.
A flood of words
for you who were asking me,
claiming from me
support and sympathy,
living works.
I gave you sermons
By way of understanding :
judgements, instructions
and warnings.
I betrayed you
in your aspirations,
resigned against my will
to the greediness of the world
and its habits.
I left you alone.
Worse, I rejected
and trampled on you.
I, sent off by the inertia
fallen into the contingencies,
sure to make you clever.
No, you didn't get lost
It is I who lost you.


"How hard it is to discover
that you failed their aspirations
and you're not at all
as they hoped,
that you're far from
the clear idea
they had of you.
And how painful
to grieve them
even for love
without cheating
and to reveal to them
the real status
so uselessly denied,
the truth of monster
knowing this will tear them
inside the flesh
but unable to do any different
and drive them to despair."

It's the incoherent reality,
the emptiness and fullness
of life, its
irregular progress,
the finished and stuttering
measure
of our stumbling
foot
slipping on nothing,
the human aspect
and data of history.

" When it happens,
nothing guarantees you
not even for a moment
and there's no way
to get out of it,
the thread of honor
is broken, no longer you have
faith in yourself ,
in your skills :
you go adrift.
So I happened
to sink
because on top of daring
submission
imposed itself,
on top of self-esteem
my scorn and
on my former pride
my shame, yes.
The fear of the world
drained my will.
Until I met him
and I felt it, alive,
the need
to have love and
return it too.
And just when
it seemed all over,
drowned in my vain
sorrow, suddenly
I found
with strength
an unexpected sense
in life".


I was scared
when in contact
with his pain,
fearing not to be able
to face him at all
so shattered and listless
in his youth,
and adding more anxiety
to my violent state
of dismay. But,
having overcome the terror
after the first impact,
I found myself
prepared for any eventuality
even if in torment
and without a solution.
I, loving loved
seeing myself
granted
- cruelest favor -
the bitter gall
of survival,
I feel at a loss
deceived by the sentence,
unhappy and cheated
at being
so unexpectedly
preserved and untouched.

I will take him,
now, as my son:
he will be to me
what you were,
I will love him
- I promise you -
even more,
if this doesn't
as blasphemous,
in your name
and memory,
not to do wrong
to your wishes
and feelings
and not only for this,
not only for grief
and for regret
but truly for love.


This was
my biggest mistake.
Why did I wait
to see him already
bent under the load
to say out loud to him
that all that counts
is what he felt
and gave intensely
whoever he loved?
This is what has saved him
and made him alive
before being struck
down and wasted away.

"It wasn't for advice
or an explanation
that I followed you
greedily in your study,
I didn't even care
too much for your opinion.
For a hug,
I came there looking for
approval.
Covering, holding back
the burning lava
rising inside of me,
pretending nothing had
I screamed without words :
"Father, here's your son".


How much time we lost
never saying
what really matters,
paying no attention
one to the other
distracted meanwhile
towards irrelevant things
in vain actions
of little account.
Thinking maybe
we had endless
expanses
widening forever,
wasting instead part of our lives
in futile misdeeds,
dreaming about arrivals and
repeated contacts
and, finally,
the opportunity.
Holding back in the meantime
all the love felt
and God knows why
in our head or our heart
missed every time.
Being unconscious
of limits and therefore
of buried freedom.

The secret origin
suddenly caught
and made evident ,
the source, the crack…
of a self projection
at one's best,most positive.
In that which, being,
believed enduring
then becomes irremovable
stopping condition.
But, meanwhile, it's
a geiser, boric-acid
seething fumarole .

The midday dream
the joy possessed
and yet the euphoria
departing…
An arcane touch
that slowly makes
everything less easy
and more exciting :
uncontrolled frenzy.

"If I get well,
and walk again,
if I stand straight
if I can go out
on my own
and go again
however I like
and wherever I want.
The short way
to the news-stand
would be enough
even in the snow
with the risk of falling,
and what a bright idea
would be the adventure
of an entire journey
further away,
a one day odyssey
in quest of mishaps
breaks and encounters
discoveries and diversions.
I would stop to drink
just for the taste
and for the smell,
a cup of coffee and
would stay inside
just to sniff
the smoke of cigarettes.
I would go in to talk
to the grocer,
looking at the colors
of every fruit and veg
in his boxes
filling my hands
with those perfect shapes.
I would waste time
on the street
on the traces of my cat,
swallowing the air
cold and pure
and sipping
for a little longer
the taste of fog.
If I get well… I
will go over the already done
and the already seen,
the incommensurable
that I have known".


But all is gone
now, lost and
slid down the slope
of the time consumed,
vanished and disappeared
into the breach
with no return
from farewell.


By climbing
the steps of life
for months and years,
one learns
by experience
the rite of sorrow
and the art of dying
with no tricks:
cherishing last
moments, at the bedside,
celebrating
the final act of an exit
and trying to restore
with the argument
of intelligence
and with no pride
some dignity to the insufficiency
of the organs, to the damaged
functions of the brain
and to the progressive
destruction
of every vital point.

It's a moment of encounter
and of greeting:
his consolation
in the fright
and the consolation
from the mourning of those
who loved him,
in the precise moment when
they're separating
each one going
his own way.
Suspended, the ones, all together
and he over there careful
in the dark that dazzles him
over the edge now
of every prediction
inside the reverse
of his own medal.

" I said goodbye,
to all of you, without speaking.
I thanked you all.
You have been
strength and reason
in my worries,
in spite of the ham
I have done you
in my repeated mistake.
I have learned to love you,
you know that,
and I still love you so:
you will remain in my mind
and in my heart.
But I'm leaving in haste
departing from the world,
I'm about to leave you
and I only look ahead.
I no longer see
the present,
I feel relieved and
buoyant, in flight,
not really happy
but not suffering either,
attracted by the leap
into which I'm
hurting and have
fallen".


It's not harrowing, no,
as he had feared:
he lies collapsed
inside himself and
surrendering descends
into the funnel. He
no longer resists:
anything is leading him
finally to peace.

Dam barrier watershed
- island and bridge - tunnel
alley passageway
from which to filter out there
the rest
of the world.
Invisible curious
seam
that fishes from the depth
baits anxiety
and ensures integrity.
Double-cross:
in and out
fear and confidence
pause and motion.
Truth that opens
And closes again on the unknown.

I see you now
only from behind
as from the top of a
peak descending,
lower and lower,
moving ahead in
the narrow alley
at the end of the passage
where you'll disappear.
Don't leave,
stay, wait.
You are already in contact
with something else
I just can't
share in.
You can't be able to see me
on your side.
Who is rushing you?
What are your reasons? Stay,
please, because
I know that you don't know
but it's
who has to put up with the theft.
Air of each breath
I take, blood
my flesh.
Without you what will I do
with my life?
What a dark forecast,
feeble reality
offers to me,
what a piercing primer.
But your eyes
are elsewhere:
where, it doesn't show
but not here around.
You stare at another world
Just a step away
and yet so distant,
remote, sideral.

Faint mirror
screen of fear
dominated by
emptiness.
Sets the arrow
in motion and
slides the fearful
hand sideways.
And the world falls
into the trap, taken
from fog, by venture
seen and recalled
in the marks of a chalk
that carves scratches
creeps creaks,
writing monster.
This way,from the firm dark
the dusty slab
stares from the bottom
at the edges of the thing.


Moving around
his raving,
I just managed
in time to tell him
the meaning
for me of
the life he led
and the flight
he took too soon
on the crest of the world.
It was my way
of sharing his fate
till the end,
restoring dignity
to death and not allowing him
to remain alone.


Provided one can continue
to be present
sitting there close to
somebody who silently
ends his wandering
and truly talk
to one who seems
to pass via internal doors
to another path
into his own destiny.


Oh hidden God
but perhaps not far off
pursued and longed for
but never caught,
oh secret God
of heart and of mind
who sees and hears everything
deciphers and recompuses it,
oh dreamed God
sleeping the sound sleep
of the unjust,
whatever
your state is,
whatever place
in the universe
keeps you submerged
and infinite, hub
fixed for ever inside
its circle, you,
scandal of the world,
stretch your hand
and hold him in his fall,
take him there
beyond the gray ditch
of our lack of love
and make him land
in your cheerful hive
from the bottom of the abyss
in the flower of your flower.


What will be, afterwards?
What will happen ?
In a state of permanent
unconsciousness...
or, void...
or, worse, nothingness…
Maybe another
way of feeling
will allow us to experience
a life revived
from death.

The force that swells
pressed and prolonged
still for who knows
how long,
unopposed and arrogant
fury while
it grows puffed up and
attacks with its violence
and mauls every
crushed part,
the intact power
that pushes him out
of himself
outstretched and unbalanced
inside the crack
of his wound
open and swollen
never more healed.


Flood that sweeps
that curves that strip
from side to side
that sinks that jumps.
Wave that takes
that swoops and spreads
that pours that blends
that spills that
dissipates wraps
connects. Till
it breaks and lies
hidden its presence
cancelled. And underneath
the impact of the uprooted
avalanche it seems extirpated
from its stratum.


The body is flat
without tone
forced in a tissue paper
that becomes
short and empty
no longer sustained
by a breath,
the throb has died away
and the breath is loose
it's naked, its essence
has faded, the air
has left
the abandoned husk
and already in the hands of nothing
and of non-existence.
Gone who knows where,
extracted, he has passed away
and the light in his eyes
has flown,
has turned dull
and grey at once,
his eyes flat
with no pupils.
His life
has withered,
after the blizzard.


If he hears or not
still...it becomes
another state
after he has slipped
from the violent phase
of pain
to the quiet shadows
of an appearance
strained and already faded
before his entrance.

What is left for us?
If not the loss,
the incomplete condition
to be borne meanwhile
together with
the sense of guilt
at what we could have done
and didn't do.
The main part of ourselves
died there with you,
because without knowing it
we were the accomplices
of almost every act of yours,
because your life
was our life too.
Oh beloved son
and, in loving you,
finally discovered
full of torments
and of secret virtues.
What a sad inheritance,
what a bitter feelings
we have stumbled upon
all unawares.
And from Live Coals
as you used to call us
here we are, reduced
-if you could see us-
to crushed-out stubs,
waiting perhaps
-and we hope-
to be rekindled,
a little at least
despite our regret
more at the joy,
that you would have had
than at the feast
you would have given us.


Peace after wild
fury. He lies
turned on his
own misfortune, lost to
life, the infected.
Executed by a spurious
law. With no escape
under torture
fallen and skinned.

It's not at all
the biblical plague
it's not the punishment
for all the evils of the world
it's not a scourge
but a terrible crime
an offense to people
of an indifferent nature
and the cross is borne
in the cardinal years
of their lives
by the dense
but not wicked crowd
of the young
gone adrift
under a pall of gloom
for the vague crime
of impetuosity and disappointment
fruit of the age
and through confusion
of roles and goals.
Deprived
of any kind of defense
and unable to
resist the assault
already a prey to the sickness
of the hypocritical enemy
who, by bitter deceit,
disguises himself and poses
as different
giving the slip
to those who hunt him
and, unharmed and
cowardly, meanwhile
sacks and ruthlessly
pillages
under cover.

Double-edged state
of nature
its duplicity
as a shield and as an enemy
is a source of remedies
and of mortal dangers
and whatever it grants
it asks just so much
in exchange. It gives us
nothing that it has not
already taken.
The art of ambiguity
bridgehead,
it guides us back
from a remote past
to the future.
It opposes motion
to its own halts,
emptiness to fullness
the positive
meets the negative
and at every action
later a reaction
equal and opposite.
It urges answers on us
to give us a way out
in the environment
that it has created around us:
it plunges us into risk,
challenging greatly
our immunity.
It loses a part of us
to save us in full.


His life
is no longer
in his body,
someone has
pulled it out.
It's somewhere else now
up in the air
it floats lightly
moves away
intact
from the shell in which it was
a prisoner.

What stays, then,
for a few more hours
is this wrapping of ourselves,
contracted and shrunk
stripped to the bottom
made dirty white
like the dull colour
of wax.
The vital spirit
that imbues
the depths of the tissues
making them throb and
giving them en equal energy,
has left
vanished slipping away
to sail which seas?
The soul in its flight
has dragged him out
before the attack
that spreading within
has torn everything asunder.
Shame and dishonor
of a nature that,
careless, disfigures us
till we are left
unrecognizable
to our loved ones.


What dignity
or even meaning
can there be
in such a
devastating action...
the wicked predator
gaining ground inside
belt and rock
with its twisted
branches clinging to
with the hooks
of its tentacles driven
into the dark depths
leech of tissues
bomb and parasite
has silently
eaten the life
from the heart
to the farthest boundaries
infecting
biting greedily
adulterating
blazing the inferno
within.

Fierce claw
loyal blade
that digs wildly
twists and entangles
blazes and freezes
grows and consumes
in its arms
cruel fate.

I hardly
realize it but
despite everything
I am happy, now,
that he has at last escaped
the subtle
and pitiless
degrading disease
that devastated
his body and his mind,
clouded by pain
burned by the flame
that day after day
eroded him and crushed
the healthy layers
of his youth.
But I have not
accepted it, the drama,
is getting to know it.
It wasn't any comfort
to my uncertainty
that the only salvation
is, sometimes,
death
for those you love.


He's gone
struck down by the cursed
illness, plundered
and subjected
to corruption and outrage,
in the midst of those
who supported him
friends and witnesses
of giving and taking
guarantors of the past
and of the respect that
even a lurid death
offers to its last
tremors and crude spasms.
They, the living ones,
more orphaned
for that he could have been
- but he is already lost -
and, at the same time, adult heirs
of the vast capital
of his love.

And then maybe
The soul is immortal:
whatever path
it takes, unharmed
it manages to get over
the infinite suffering
that it has borne
and not to remain
inert and stunned there
by the confused awful
terminal affair.
Wherever it goes,
whether up or down,
it doesn't get lost
in its fall
into delirium
racked by unconsciousness.

...the slow descent
spiralling
toward oblivion
light that fades
and dims
together with breath
brain
that dies
swallowing its ego...


Beyond the final challenge
and the lost battle
in the pursued aim
of resisting
the presumed outrage,
under the iron guidance
of the survival instinct
the journey back
from the peak of life
has already begun
and slowly proceeds
to its starting point:
the indefinite state
-of forgetfulness
or inexistence? -
of before
he was even conceived.


Nobody knows how
and when. But
maybe
ceasing
one does not stop
being, then,
and a new
form of perception
is the condition
that awaits us.


The body dies
but not the
consciousness, perhaps.
It grows and become stronger
just when
its container
goes forward
on the road to
progressive decay
and, at the moment of separation,
it doesn't even stop
against the wall
of absence.
The expectation of future
does not cease at all.

Oh, modern death
concealed purified
from decomposition
made external finished
sealed in hospital
sterilized apparently
without smell or noise
cancelled by fear
banished from talk
exiled suspended
camouflaged removed
for business interest
stripped of value
yet present
beyond its alleged
denial:
border and cutting
irreducible boundary line
to what will not bend
and opposes its powerful
internal blast.


How to keep quiet and
pretend not to
see the wound,
fear only
that it is over...
let yourself go
and condemn yourself
to drifting.
Having suppressed and overcome
the great fear
of burial,
the ghost of the grave
where the self does not live,
to look face to face
and no longer consider
as a threat
or a disgrace
the blade
that cuts the thread.
To reconcile oneself
with the unchanged cycles
and reclaim
one's own fate.
Because grief
calls life,
not more death.


May everything fall
dead
to be revived,
may it be consumed
to be reborn.
It's the triumph
of life perpetuated
as it is buried.
As the way has been
prepared for us,
we prepare it
ourselves
and we die
so that someone else may live
to our harm
and glory.
Each generation
is replaced
by the next one :
history continued
by other histories,
never-ending series.

But the continuation
may end instead,
partially diminished
and later impeded
at any rate demolished
if it is the young
that dies
and there's no replacement
to follow them.
The rotation gives way,
diverted, to its own
crazed law.

You can fix
the game,
but not that much
stretching and extending
by every means
the natural threshold
of life.
It's an honour
that costs the price
of a wound
never healed
and of a dry
siliconed vein.
The flame goes out
inevitably,
the worn-out
rusty equipment
slowly scales over.
But the novel
of the immortal gods
is an invitation
and never ends
the dream of revitalizing
the dried lymph,
and restoring the irreparable
damage
with the remedy
of scalpel
and vitamins.

Luminous old men
mirrors of the extreme
force in separation
present yet
already far from life
standing on the abyss
with no grip
witnesses of time
and of its eternal
and infinite promise
unfearing and open
generous of themselves
to the point of wastage
blood and breath
voice of the world
sweet company
for the few children
of their own children
set on their way.

Greedy old men
thirsty for power
careful to pull
the threads of the plot
deaf to the reasons
of successions
clinging by their claws
to their positions
conquered at any price
adulterated and made
a personal possession
then maintained
by any means.
Mirrors of themselves
hostile or indifferent
to expectations and desires
sparing of advice
happy and convinced
that they have not passed
led to consider themselves
eternal and matchless
irreplaceable
and drives to impede
the natural renewal
and to deny
by pure presumption
the presence and the rights
the quality of the young
sons or not
placed in suspension
clipped and rejected
derelicts.

Without death, no,
there would be neither
fate or destiny.
Life would no longer
Run on to
the definite threshold,
deprived of all meaning
and condemned
to be lived
even if the long
pace of the immense,
in the most absolute
indifference.


If I know that I'll die
and that with me
the huge heap
of my consciousness
will burn,
then the act
will be


influenced but
also enlightened
by the evidence
of the redeeming uniqueness
of every moment
that comes and goes.

It's the goad
that urges and pushes
gives no respite,
the pressure of mourning.
It's the obstacle
against which one tries
everything, to postpone
the disturbing
of the sudden
inanimate, the fear,
the alarming state
of cancellation,
to defer
the returning anguish
of being wiped out,
to cheat time
that advances into the past and
bolts, pushes hard
the doors of his
future fate.

Without death
there would be nothing
no society no history
no future
and not even hope.
It is the necessary
condition
for the survival
of the species.
Even if
the explanation
does not convince,
it doesn't satisfy
human expectations
with respect
to everyone's
concrete wish
to prove in reality
always and anyway
the one that remains.

Ego on the alert
in front of itself
inhibited obstacle
and on the traces
of the sidetracked fact.
But key hole,
open crack
toward the unthinkable:
may the depth lie
inside the flat bottom
and within the finite
the unlimited,
repeatedly dead,
yet reborn.
The image different
from what was imagined.
And, in the game of
difference and identity,
having revealed what little
truth, in discovering
that the known world
is not at all
the only reality.

From behind a screen
or just a little dull
milky glass
one perceives
the shadow that crumbles
the never complete shape
without the edge
just a moment
before it goes
under a vain kind.
For all that
I cannnot see,
I believe,
something of us
will stay. The
thinnest part
and the lighest
will fly away
and will find its way through
into the garden
at the back of the world.
And there in the blind alley
where life
runs out in our eyes
marked out by death,
a great river of energy
flows
and expands and pours
beyond the gates
the eternal into the present.
Having arrived
right to the very stop
of the supreme
in the conscious
splendor of light
it will stay there submerged
in the sea of sweetness
and will suddenly find
its absolute peace.


 


  Paolo Ruffilli Mail: ruffillipoetry@gmail.com