The silence also breathes (Anche el silensio spira)

 

The silence also breathes

a wondering surprise,

watching over the sea

that is in love with it and sighs.

 

Long and steadily I gaze

into its laughing eyes,

so many firmaments reflected 

it would splendidly embrace.

 

Small stirrings, and none grand,

proffer new messages.

May is always still on hand,

though the sun is lustreless.

 

 

There’s such a wind tonight (La sera ha tanto vento)

 

There’s such a wind tonight,

blowing dark vacant air

in a long lament

that my soul has to share.

 

The night has icy hands;

it lays them on my heart; 

there are no more faraway comets 

on which to depart.

 

And you don’t bring the comfort

that a woman could,

the warmth of the flesh,

the scent of your blood.

 

I am scorched earth.

Let your kisses bring their rain.

On your bosom I can rest,

though black night carries me away.

 

 

 

I’m always waiting (Me speto sempre)

 

I’m always waiting, still waiting like this,

for the day to dawn, for dawn to come

to come and give to me her kiss,

to offer me a vase with her geranium,

 

before the still red-glowing cloud 

of the last day has disappeared

above the seashore

above the sandbar.

 

It’s the last hour already,

calmly and quietly it flows by,

carrying the light of life away.

And here am I, still waiting.

 

 

 

Every day so many die (Tanti more ogni dia)

 

Every day so many die

every moment someone goes

with not a whisper of good-bye:

and into nothing my life flows.

 

We are a flesh that is one sole,

one life that’s fused of all that is

in the single breathing whole

that then shines on the nothingness. 

 

We disappear and there’s no change.

Other candles light the sky.

Wider the shadows seem to range,

but the full flame flares just as high.

 

Dying’s a rest marked in the score,

if you look at how the flame’s song goes,

or at the leaf that falls before

a simple kiss the north wind blows.

 

 

 

I am not dying defeated (No’ moro vinto)

 

I am not dying defeated.

For I’ve always said Amen

to all my yearnings,

and let measure be my end.

 

I’ve been glad to be alive,

and wanted nothing more,

the stars and the blue sky

my limit and my shore.

 

Even death’s vanity

has flavoured my living

and the wing of a swallow

that I glimpsed leaving.

 

 

Broken seashells (Cape rote, framinti)

 

Broken seashells, looking lovely

on the sandbanks where they lie,

fragmented bones of creatures

which one day were alive 

 

in the deep transparent sea –

sainted shellfish bending double,

shellfish smooth as sun-tanned skin,

spiky shellfish, blonde and trouble.

 

Creatures of the depths:

south wind and waves have reached

down for them in their salted world

and thrown them on the barren beach.

 

The life in them is lost,

broken into bits or banned,

yet some light is left shining

on the lifeless, silent sand.

 

I look now at these pieces

of sea urchins that I knew,

the blonde girls who filled me with love

and loved my eyes of blue.

 

And here’s a grand sainted one,

a gulf of white and brown

that the sea who feeds and plays on her

wants now for his own.

 

And what about the smooth ones?

Their fragments speak once more

of kisses from so many girls

on this unlistening shore.

 

 

Note: Here Marin plays on the local names for various shellfish to suggest different girls and women.

 

 

 

The God we have within (El Dio che ’vemo drento)

 

The God we have within

is always mute and alone,

as poor as is the wind

passing by with no clothes on.

 

He leaves each and every thing

to its life and to its death,

stays outside the endless scurrying

to meet this or that fate.

 

He is always on his own,

and as desolate as we are;

nowhere on earth does he sink down,

no refuge finds in any star.

 

 

Silence calls to me (El silensio me ciama)

 

Silence calls to me,

and I obey.

The ancient yearning of the heart

is summoned from its deep hideaway.

 

Thus it melts into the shadows,

becoming rhythm, then words that make

lasting music and then fly,

leaving a luminous wake.

 

It is painful, the secret

that the silence sets free.

What’s left of me is a sail

voyaging across a calm blue sea.

 

 

 

From Last breaths of wind (Ultime refolàe, 1975)

 

The sun was sinking on the hill (El sol el ’ndeva a monte)

 

The sun was sinking on the hill,

lovesick for a cloud on high,

touching the horizon he,

she peach-blossom in the sky.

 

How he wanted her new light,

could not bear to die and go,

in a desperate stream of tears

vented his enormous woe.

 

She was just a slip of cloud,

could not help but turn to flame

to soothe the longings of the sun,

blazing as the still night came.

 

 

I’m alone among those (Son solo fra la zente)

 

I’m alone among those

to whom I am most close,

with a soul that’s setting

and melancholy regret.

 

I am serene certain days

and there’s blue light in my gaze,

and some tune from faraway

passes through my head.

 

It feels not to intrude,

and soothes my solitude.

Two notes barely played,

which then float off on the wind.

 

 

 

From Last Verses (Versi ultimi, 1978-80)

 

Me, I’m going off to be dead (Me, a la morte vago)

 

Me, I’m going off to be dead, 

off to sleep in endless shade,

I’m living the last agony,

but dying is all right by me.

 

Every tree becomes dry

and bit by bit must die,

clouds race across the sky,

and the hours all go by.

 

 

From Verses 1978-1981 (Versi 1978-1981)

 

We are bundles of twigs (Semo fassine)

 

We are bundles of twigs

always ready for burning,

we come from the mountain,

from a distant morning.

 

Dry bundles of twigs

that flames straightaway catch

under the chimney

when a girl lights the match.

 

But they burn loveliest

beneath laughter of stars,

when the whole firmament

is ablaze in the wind.

 

But our bundle of twigs

lasts just a short while,

and pure ash scatters

in the morning breeze.

 

8 March 1978

 

 

From The Hidden Light (La luse sconta, 1983)

 

Don’t sit and despair (Non stâ disperâ)

 

Don’t sit and despair;

summer still comes along,

and roses still flower, 

and violets shout their song;

they want to have their young.

 

We who’ve borne what we could

will soon be laid

in secret graves,

deep in God’s shade.

 

 

So much beauty (Tanta beltà)

 

So much beauty

but it put up no resistance

to the great blueness

of growing distance.

 

So much honey there to sweeten

and every drop eaten;

only a memory stays

of a harvest day.

 

What smells were in the air,

what colour in the sky?

What birdsong was it

that I heard float by?

 

 

On the sea are no more sails (Sul mar mai più ’na vela)

 

On the sea are no more sails,

yachts and schooners disappeared,

and steamers of yesterday

are a dream of times gone by.

 

The great sailing ships,

with square sails and spinnakers

came in from foreign ports

from grander shores.

 

A world already lost,

a fable in decay;

once winter is past,

life goes on its way. 

 

 

 

Let the fun be enjoyed (Làssili gôde)

 

Let the fun be enjoyed,

but a lovely flower

lasts barely an hour,

and the girls feel the void.

 

Kisses do not feed,

do not fructify,

and the handsome boys

are left with their need.

 

For kisses to be nourishing

you want the soul to glow,

you want the soul to sing,

as red geraniums in vases do.

 

 

From The Voice of Evening (La vose de la sera, 1985)

 

Good company, the dead (I morti, bona compagnia)

 

Good company, the dead;

old tunes that play

with a friendly sound

from all sorts of faraway.

 

The girls sing melodies

even if they’re mute,

and they all harmonise,

the mates who drop by.

 

They too form a firmament

that looks set to stay,

but it’s always in movement,

like the solar day.

​

21 April 1981

 

 

Lord, I’m sated with my days  (Signor, son sássio dei gno zurni)

 

 

Lord, I’m sated with my days,

of constant returnings

of evenings and mornings

and nights that are bright

with stars of deceit.

 

I want stable skies

where nothing flies,

and no word is heard

of another fresh thought.

 

I want peace that is stable

not more life, with its illness,

not life and its trouble,

condemned to nought.

​

28 April 1981