da Il tempo e il Destino  di Giuseppe Mascotti


appigli / clasps

 

  Many clasps, everywhere but not
for despair on ground now empty
of men and animals. That sheep
bleating to a barred shelter, that bitch
maybe carrying, so restless 
with plunges and turn-abouts
on a plane without an outlet!
In a dried-up nature where a splendid 
foliage, in short-spanned season turns
to a lifeless clearing: only cold-stiffened birds 
rest little brittle clawed feet there,
then off from the rigours 
of formerly leafy railings, now wasted
chambers of nesting, of mating.

Prologues of death in tottering transit?
Men and animals, clasping anxiety
in a copious inaccessible universe?

Like sensitive instinctive beasts
to hostile assaults often soccumbing,
ourselves, aware of blocks and bounds,
are not deprived of hope.
Yet our own inner evil and of the universe
can blot us just when the aim gets within clasp.



                                 translated by Alberto Sighele