From L’Allegria/Cheerfulness (Poems 1914-1919) by Guiseppi Ungaretti
Part 2, Porto Sepolto/The Buried Port
Risvegli Mariano il 29 giugno 1916
Ogni mio momento
io l’ho vissuto
un’altra volta
in un’epoca fonda
fuori di me
Sono lontano colla mia memoria
dietro a quelle vite perse
Mi desto in un barno
di care cose consueta
sorpreso
e raddolcito
Rincorro le nuvole
che si sciolgono dolcemente
cogli occhi attenti
e mi rammento
di qualche amico
morto
Ma Dio cos’e?
E la creatura
atterrita
sbarra gli occhi
e accoglie
gociole di stelle
e la pianua muta
E si sente
riavere
Awakening (Translation) by Wally Swist
Mariano, 29 June 1916
My every moment
I have experienced
another time
in an early age
beside myself
My memory takes me far away
behind those lives that have been lost
I awaken in a bathroom
amid dear and unusual things
surprised
and sweetened
Watchful
my eyes chase clouds
that dissolve softly
and I recall
a few dead friends
I ask what is God?
And the creature
terrified
widens your eyes
and welcomes
drops of stars
and augments the plain
And you feel
that it returns
Wally Swist’s books include Huang Po and the Dimensions of Love (Southern Illinois University Press, 2012), Awakening & Visitation, and Evanescence: Selected Poems (2020), both with Shanti Arts. His translations have been published and/or are forthcoming in Chiron Review, Ezra: An Online Journal of Translation and Solstice: A Magazine of Diverse Voices among others
