Journal of Italian Translation - Brooklyn College - Academic Home ...

Paul D’Agostino / Vittorio Cozzoli
luminous, the mist of the soul,
the gathered distance of oneness.
*
Pity and rage, rage and pity.
I’m no Saint Christopher
nor even a small Atlas
who bears the weight of the world between
his shoulders and neck. How much my shoulders
might bear I don’t know, and neither do you yours.
Where are you, hawthorns and elders?
Here is the mire of the self, here the dark stables
of Augia. Yet good omens come
from memory. To start anew is necessary,
to finish, even more.
*
“Truth, truth,” cry the bones.
“Take notes: a more purple lilac,
the plentiful pollen rains, the wind
in the wheat stalks, the noontime light.
Take notes: the court of hypocrites,
whispers in the shadows. Why,
set aside, two-faced Janus? And why
among literati is the god, not Hermes, the other,
so low, and lower still? Start from the
eighth of those first verses, from there
shout louder, the rest will come.”
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