By Mario Luzi (1914-2005) translated by Anne Greeott.
The river firm in its bright skin
shaken by the headwind, one last
bashful pause before the bridges —
who knows how your silence
leaves me on the inner gleam of that memory
of a break in time, and in it
the city blazes undone in water,
the mind burns in joy almost allowing
for a moment one single
happening and not happening re-melting
until numbly there is nothing else,
that fire, that water, those elements.
from In the Fire of Controversy (1974)
Photo By: Axel
