Eugenio Montale
In the Void
The sun’s mane caught
in the cane stakes of the vegetable plots –
on the shore, seeming to doze, the odd lifeboat.
The day yielded no sound
beneath the polished arch,
not even a pine cone’s thud
or bud’s detonation,
on the other side of the walls.
Silence swallowed everything.
Our boat hadn’t stopped,
cut the sand like razor wire; a sign long hovering in air
plummeted.
Now the earth was an overflowing rim,
weight melted in the glare,
the blaze that was the dark’s foam,
the pit widening, too deep
for us and for anchors.
Until suddenly
something happened, the trench sealed
shut, everything and nothing was lost.
And I was awake to the sound
of your rediscovered lips –
the vein imprisoned
in crystal
which waits to be released.
in the cane stakes of the vegetable plots –
on the shore, seeming to doze, the odd lifeboat.
The day yielded no sound
beneath the polished arch,
not even a pine cone’s thud
or bud’s detonation,
on the other side of the walls.
Silence swallowed everything.
Our boat hadn’t stopped,
cut the sand like razor wire; a sign long hovering in air
plummeted.
Now the earth was an overflowing rim,
weight melted in the glare,
the blaze that was the dark’s foam,
the pit widening, too deep
for us and for anchors.
Until suddenly
something happened, the trench sealed
shut, everything and nothing was lost.
And I was awake to the sound
of your rediscovered lips –
the vein imprisoned
in crystal
which waits to be released.
Translated by Simon CarnellErica Segre
Page(s) 92-93
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