from L’Allegria/Cheerfulness (1914-1919)
by Guiseppi Ungaretti; Part 1, Ultime/Latest
Anche questa notte passera
Questa solitudine in giro
titubante ombra dei fili tranviari
sull’umido asfalto
Guardo le teste dei brumisti
nel messo sono
tentennare
HOW, TRANSLATION BY WALLY SWIST
Even this night will pass
This loneliness around
the hesitant shadow of tram lines
on wet asphalt
I look over the misty heads of those
as they sleep,
wavering
Wally Swist’s books include Huang Po and the Dimensions of Love (Southern Illinois University Press, 2012), selected by Yusef Komunyakaa as co-winner in the 2011 Crab Orchard Series Open Poetry Contest, and A Bird Who Seems to Know Me: Poems Regarding Birds & Nature (Ex Ophidia Press, 2019), the winner of the 2018 Ex Ophidia Press Poetry Prize.
