Eugenio Montale
Monologue
I no longer lean
over the balcony
to see if the horse-drawn diligence
is coming back with schoolboys
from the Barnabites.
Long stretches of life then
appear to be missing,
whoever thinks life
suffers no such gaps
seems crazy to me:
it’s not a question of death and resurrections
but of long descents to the Dead where something
not yet reached breaking point still seethes.
This would be the death we detest
so we content ourselves with that seething
like a distant rumble of thunder.
Something in the Universe is happening,
a search into itself
for meaning, so that it can start again
with us in tow, rubbish
to be thrown away,
or we fall, each one of us, by ourselves.
[1980?]
Translated by N. S. Thompson
Page(s) 16
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