Salvatore Quasimodo Lament for the South (La luna rossa, il vento, il tuo colore) The red moon, the wind, your complexion of a woman of the North, the expanse of snow… My heart lies among these grasslands now, in these waters clouded by fog. I forget the sea, the sombre conch blown by Sicilian shepherds, the rumble of carts along the streets where the carob tree trembles in stubble-smoke. I forget the passage of herons and cranes, through the air of green highlands to the fields and rivers of Lombardy. But people everywhere cry the fate of my country. Nothing any more will take me South. Oh, the South is weary of dragging its dead along the edges of malarial marshes, weary of solitude, weary of chains, its mouth wearied with the curses of all the races who screamed death, to the echo of its wells, who drank the blood from its heart. That’s why its children take to their mountains, drive their horses under a blanket of stars, eat the acacia flowers along the trails the freshest red, still red, still red. Nothing any more will take me South. And this evening filled with winter is still ours, and here I repeat to you my absurd counterpoint of sweetness and fury a lament of love without love.
Posted on: Wed, 03 Jul 2013 02:39:31 +0000
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