January 19, 1944
SALVATORE QUASIMODO
Translated from the Italian by Giuliano Dego
I read to you an ancient poet's sweet verses
and the words born among vineyards and tents, on the riverbanks of the lands to the East, as now they fall mournful and desolate in this profoundest night of war, when no one flies the sky of the angels of death, and we hear the wind with its roar of ruin shaking the iron screens that up here divide the balconies, and gloom rises from dogs howling in orchards at the rifle shots of patrols on the deserted streets. Someone is alive.
Someone, perhaps, is alive. But we, here, enclosed in searching of the ancient voice, seek a sign that outreaches life, earth's dark witchcraft, where even among tombs of rubble the malignant grass raises its flower.
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