Massimo Maggiari
Amundsen's Paean
Wind, you who rise
dreams from the mountains,
breathe love and song
on the celestial bulwarks.
Offer
words and blood
to the voices of the world.
Protect my sky
my constellations
and their unborn stars.
Defend my fjord
and the scattered tribes
of the She-Bear's Hunters.
I am Roald Engelbert Amundsen
artic explorer, Norwegian by birth
I am the son of Iems,
builder of tall ships.
I come from Borge in Ostfold
I am the dreamer of the Big Dipper.
My body is a millenary tree.
I am strong. I am joyful.
I am wave. I am stone.
In the summer I have forty thousand branches.
In the winter I have eleven fingers.
In my dreams I catch the mind
in a sea of spray and silence.
I speak from my chest
in a language of tortoises and gulfs
while serene the mornings catch fire
offering the ships
a peace made of light and salt.
In the winter
of the year one thousand nine hundred and three
on King William's Island
at sunset
I boarded a little hull.
The Eskimos
could hear my steps
resound lightly
among the gorges of the fjords
to fade
in crystalline shadows.
At night I glided among the ice packs
immersed in pitch and mist
and the moon
that diffused milk-white light
looked for me in vain,
weaving at the helm
a thousand silvery flakes.
In secret with fire I cut
a northwest passage,
and in the melting glaciers
danced angels and black eyes.
Translated by Laura Stortoni-Hager
Page(s) 74-75
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