Table of Contents

Translator's Preface xiii

A Note on the Text xviii

From Satura

Xenia I, 13 3

Xenia II, 5 3

Xenia II, 14 5

History

I "History does not unfold …" 5

II "Then again, history isn't…" 7

The Rhymes 9

Letter 9

Le Revenant 11

Time and Times 13

The Black Angel 13

The Arno at Rovezzano 17

Down There 17

Rebecca 19

From Diary of '71 and '72 (Diamo Del '71 E Del '72)

The Arte Povera 25

Hiding Places 25

My Muse 27

Fire 29

At This Point 29

The Clock with the Carillon Chimes 31

The New Iconographers 33

Lake Sorapis, 40 years Ago 35

From Four-Year Notebook (Quaderno Di Quattro Anni)

Honor 39

Solitude 41

Heroism 41

Reading Cavafy 43

For a Cut Flower 43

Fire and Darkness 45

Soliloquy 45

"The blackcap wasn't killed …" 47

Questions without an Answer 49

Beside Lake Orta 51

In a Northern City 53

About a Lost Cat 53

Hypothesis 53

In No Danger 55

Aspasia 57

"Protect me…" 57

Lakeside Drive 61

Mirages 63

Other Poems (Altriversi)

I.

"… leafy cupolas from which a polyphony …" 71

"That idiot blackbird showed up late …" 71

"Winter drags on, the sun is using …" 71

The Fleas 73

Prose for A.M. 73

Motifs

"Perhaps it wasn't useless …" 75

"Its armor reduced to a tip of its shell, the lobster …" 75

"It maybe that now is the moment to tug …" 75

"When the squeaking of a bat …" 75

Critical Notes

I Hunting 77

II It Might Be 77

"Friends, put no faith in light-years …" 77

"The Big Bang must have produced …" 77

Zigging and Zagging 79

Ruminating

I "Probably …" 79

II "It seems firmly established that life was born …" 80

Today 81

While We Wait 83

Nursery 85

Hypothesis II 85

"How the horizon shrinks …" 87

"The crust of this earth is thinner …" 87

The Allegory 89

May the Worst Man Win 89

"With what voluptuous delight …" 91

"A scuffle of angry chickens …" 91

"It isn't cruel like Valery's sparrow …" 91

"The future has been over for a while …" 93

"The gigantic initial explosion …" 93

"Probably I can say the word 'I' …" 93

Time and Times II 95

The Oboe 95

The Performance 97

"Did the guy who staged this cabaret …" 97

"If the universe was born …" 99

"One may be on the right …" 99

Jupiterian 101

"When my name appeared in almost all the papers …" 101

In the Orient 101

At First Light 103

Monologue 103

To a Muse in Training 105

II.

To My Friend Pea 109

Nixon in Rome 109

Caffaro 111

At the Giardino D'Italia 113

"Thirty years have passed, maybe forty …" 115

Succulents 115

Kid Duffer 117

A Female Visitor 117

Hiding Places II

I "The canebreak where I used to go hide as a child …" 119

II "A moon a little swollen …" 121

October Blood 121

An Invitation to Lunch 123

In Doubt 123

Glory or Something Like It 125

"It seems impossible …" 127

"No more news …" 127

"Wipe your misty eyeglasses …" 129

"My Swiss timepiece had the vice …" 129

Of Luni and Other Things 131

"I have great faith in you …" 131

Clizia Says 133

Clizia in '34 135

Predictions 135

Internal/External 135

In '38 137

Quartet 139

"Since life is fleeting …" 139

I Believe 143

To Claudia Muzio 143

"When the blackcap …" 145

Beloved of the Gods 145

A Visit 147

A Note on "A Visit" 147

Ah! 149

From Fugitive Poems (Poesie Disperse)

Little Diary 153

The Drama 153

The Gift 155

Empty Talk 157

The Glory of Useless Lives 159

Life in Plain Words 161

The House in Olgiate and Other Poems (La Casa Di Olgiate E Altre Poesie)

[I] The House in Olgiate 165

[II] "I don't know if what I smell …" 167

[III] "And now here come the herbicides …" 167

[IV] The Military Parade 167

[V] In the Apartment Block

1 "A little black cat …" 169

2 "And we poor devils, starving …" 169

[VI] "The marriage …" 169

[VII] "At an early hour …" 169

[VIII] "They sent me a crown from Yugoslavia …" 171

[IX] "Our culture is advancing with giant steps …" 171

[X] "For having served his customers …" 171

[XI] G. Pascoli 171

[XII] Rarity of the Raptors 173

[XIII] "Justice these days moves at a rapid pace …" 173

[XIV] "The days of the antelope were tormented …" 173

[XV] In the Garden 173

[XVIa] "Life is like a cigar …" 175

[XVIb] "Like a Havana cigar …" 175

[XVIc] "But if a cigar existed …" 177

[XVII] From a Garden Window 177

[XVIII] About-Face 177

[XIX] "No one has ever looked death …" 179

[XX] "I'm walking chicken-hobble …" 179

[XXI] "We went over to the 'bow window' or some such …" 181

[XXII] "Time and space, two unlivable …" 181

[XXIII] "It's a mistake to believe …" 181

[XXIV] "Concerning the universe, the city of God …" 183

[XXV] "After the invention of the internal combustion engine …" 183

[XXVI] "We're imprisoned in an allegory …" 183

[XXVII] "People talk and talk more …" 183

[XXVIII] The telephone rings …" 185

[XXIX] "In the field of science …" 185

[XXX] On the Telephone 187

[XXXI] "When I enter the cemetery …" 187

[XXXII] The storm announces its arrival …" 189

[XXXIII] "There are those who live with one foot there …" 189

[XXXIV] "They say every new love cancels the old …"

[XXXV] Hypothesis 191

[XXXVI] After Bendandi 193

[XXXVII] "It's almost certain that the planet Jupiter …" 193

[XXXVIII] "The religious wars …" 193

[XXXIX] "Even if one discovered …" 193

[XL] "When science has exhausted …" 195

[XLI] "An Everything that might be a Nothing …" 195

[XLII] Simon Boccancgra 195

[XLIII] "It has never been proved that the world …" 195

[XLIV] "The last dregs of multitudinous …" 197

[XLV] "There's no doubt Theology …" 197

[XLVI] The New Art 199

[XLVII] "That the Being has many encounters and interactions …" 199

[XLVIII] "On the veranda…" 201

[XLIX] "The idea that something might exist …" 201

[L] "Unarguably …" 201

[LI] "It's almost certain that there exist …" 203

[LII] "A puff of gas …" 203

[LIII] "The Polish Pope …" 203

[LIV] "To have heard the roosters …" 203

[LV] German Scientists 205

[LVI] In someone's spare time 205

Notes to the Translations 207

Index of Titles 229

About the Author 241

About the Translator 242