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| Photo by New York Scugnizzo |
The Fall Equinox marks the transition of summer into winter. To celebrate the occasion and the season of Autumn, we would like to share a poem by Vittorio Clemente from Dialect Poetry of Southern Italy: Texts and Criticism (A Trilingual Anthology) edited by Luigi Bonaffini, Legas, 1997, p.37.
A tiempe de sorve
Nu gricele alla vite...Me retrove
ancora na cullane
de sorve mmane; e quile piuoppe ancore
remire abballe l'acque chela fronna
gialle che treme e lùcceche, ammussite
mpizze a nu rame nire; e revà ammonte
la voce, pe lu colle: "Quande è tiempe
de sorve, amore amore, già l'estate
ha pigliate la vie d'attraviezze..."
E pure mandemane, chela fronne
se raggruglie a nu fiate
de la muntagne. E dellà da nu vele
de nebbie, nfunne funne alla campagne,
chi ancora chiame? Chi redà na voce?
A chill comes over me... a necklace
of sorbs, even now, in my hands;
even now the poplar
sees in the river
the shimmer of a yellow leaf
dangling from the tip
of a blackened bough... and a voice
surges through the hills: "When sorbs
my love, are in season, summer is already in flight..."
Later this morning the leaf
will shrivel, at a whish
of mountain wind. From across a veil
of fog, from far away across the fields,
who'll call out, even now? Whose voice will ring?
(Translated by Anthony Molino)
