Poems by Rita Stanzione

In rows

 

If all of us were in rows

imagine

the moment evacuated from the origins

and pain in the eyes from unknown irises

all of us looking for a way

with worms in the our stomachs

and pieces of us detaching

 

imagine, what we would carry in our pockets

the toy of dreams  for our children

three – four nuts for our hunger

or the key of a life of separations

open to the doubt of barren rooms

in a country with a an unseeing face

clouded by the heart

(the heart in the middle as the last refuge)

 

Which words, which streams of mud

when we ask someone if that sea

is equal to ours-and the sky also

Which painting of clouds

to remind us the steep ramps

over us, ditch flowers

in the black veil of the sun

A Tomorrow without Soil

 

It happens that the wood can feel when the leaf

abandons the knot

and so he weaves a tear where the sun used to leave a kiss,

a green promise of sap where

impenetrable clods grew

-it was sand and a trap, roots with a soilless tomorrow

elsewhere even –

 

Hope: the shape of breath

Widens slightly and returns to the thorny end of the thread

where the vineyard cannot mature grapes for other hands

 

A wine is poured that is like sleep sprinkled

into nests of poppies growing in the stubble

with the red of transhumance, streaming

onto the lap of an old mother.

 

Of what land

 

What I am living

is the journey

 

I turn around, the Earth still trembles

from having denied itself

 

The limit, the obstacle

will perhaps open a door

if that glass is not there

 

shattered by the roar

of someone who was only

a false brother.

 

(Originally Written in Italian, Translated by Rita Stanzione and Ute Margaret Saine)

 

About the Poet

Rita Stanzione was born and lives near Salerno, Italy. After completing her studies in pedagogy, she has been teaching science and  branch of disability. Her poems are concerned with exploring inner worlds as well as external landscapes. Rita Stanzione is a haiku writer and accomplished translator of English language poetry into Italian. She published, in Italian language and editions, “Ink is a spotty ferment looking for a home”; “Space of liquid dreams”;  “Re-versed verses”; “What a spotty summer”; “How not to feel cold” (as an ebook).. She has won numerous first and second prizes in poetry competitions throughout Italy.

 

 

 

About the Translator

Margaret Saine is a California poet who writes and translates in several languages. Her poems have been published in many countries and languages and she is involved in a variety of collaborative projects with diverse poets of the world. umsaine@gmail.com