from L’Allegria/Cheerfulness (Poems 1914-1919) by Guiseppi Ungaretti
Part 3, Naufragi/Shipwrecked
Ma le mie urla
feriscono
come fulmini
la campana fioca
del cielo
Sprofondano
impaurite
Solitude
But my screams
pain me
like lightning
flashing in the dim bell
of the sky
They sink
in fear
Wally Swist’s books include Huang Po and the Dimensions of Love, 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), winner of the 2018 Ex Ophidia Press Poetry Prize.
