cesare pavese

2 poems for the price of one! because that's how long it's going to take my paint to dry

'Death shall come, using your eyes'

Death shall come, using your eyes -
the death that is with us
from morning till night, unsleeping,
muted like old remorse
or some foolish vice. Your eyes
will be an empty word,
a cry suppressed, a silence.
Like this each morning you
see it, when you lean alone
over the mirror. O cherished hope,
that day we too shall know
that you are life and nothingness.

Death has a look for everyone.
Death shall come, using your eyes.
It will be like ending a vice,
like seeing a dead face
emerge from the mirror,
like hearing closed lips speak.
We'll go down in silence.


I shall go through the Piazza di Spagna

The sky will be clear
The streets will open
below the hills of pine and stone.
No din of the streets will
change this motionless air.
The colour sprinkled flowers
by the fountains
will look on like women
amused. The steps
the terraces the swallows
will sing in the sun
That street will open,
the stones will sing,
the heart will beat, leaping
like water in fountains -
this will be the voice
climbing your steps.
The windows will know
the smell of stone and the morning
air. A door will open.
The din of the streets,
the din of the heart,
the light is bewildered.

It will be you - firm and clear.

trans margaret crosland


more pavese here including a another translation of the first poem. and here and here. other than this i haven't found anything actually in italian. it's worth reading out even if, like me, your italian's rubbish, because it's lovely on the tongue, esp the one about the cat