Read the translator's notes
Out of a motionless infernal
shudder and clang of steel on steel
as wagons moved toward the eternal,
a sudden silence: I was healed.
The stormcloud of my sickness fled
on a breath. A flickering of eyes,
and I saw my mother by my bed
and gazed at her without surprise.
Free! Helpless, yes, to move the hands
clasped on my chest—but I had no
desire to move. The rustling sounds
(like cypress trees, like streams that flow
across vast prairies seeking seas
that don’t exist) were thin, insistent:
I followed after those vain sighs,
ever the same, ever more distant.
Giovanni Pascoli (1855 – 1912) Italy
Translated by Geoffrey Brock
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