La primavera del mare
Anche il mare ha la sua primavera:
rondini all’alba, lucciole alla sera.
Ha i suoi meravigliosi prati
di rosa e di viola,
che qualcuno invisibile là falcia
e ammucchia il fieno
in cumuli di fresche nuvole.
Si perdon le correnti
come le pallide strade
tra le siepi dei venti
da cui sembra venire nella pioggia
come un amaro odore
di biancospino in fiore.
E certo nella valle più lontana
un pastore instancabil tonde
il suo gregge infinito di onde
tanta è la lana
che viene a spumeggiare sulla riva.
Verdognolo e lillastro, come l’arcobaleno
gemmeo elastico refrigerante,
d’accordo con il cielo
profondo arioso concavo specchiante
come il cristallo con il fiore,
tutto abbandoni e improvvise malinconie
come il primo amore.
Così fresco ed azzurro
come se trasparissero
dalla sua limpidità
le sue tacite foreste
sottomarine
avvinghiate di alghe serpentine
quest’edera senza foglie,
scorse dai freddi scivolii
di pesci di maiolica e d’argento
alati come uccelli muti,
tra i coralli irrigiditi
questi peschi sempre fioriti.
Son le rondini, fisse, le conchiglie.
E le lucciole enormi son le seppie morte,
lanterne sorde
di palombari annegati,
fari di naufraghi pericolati.
Una barca con un’immensa vela
sembra qualche straccione
fermo in un crocevia sotto l’ombrello,
in attesa che passi l’acquazzone.
The sea spring
Also the sea has its own spring:
swallows at dawn, fireflies in the evening.
It has its meadows of pink and violet,
which someone invisible cuts down
there, and makes hay
in a heap of fresh clouds.
The currents get lost
like pale lanes
between the winds’ hedges
from where a bitter smell
of flowering whitethorn
seems to come in the rain.
And look, in the furthest valley
a shepherd tirelessly shears
his boundless flock of waves,
so much wool
that it comes foaming ashore.
It’s greeny-lilac as the rainbow
jewel-like elastic refrigerant,
in agreement with the sky
deep airy hollow mirroring,
like a crystal on a flower.
It is all abandonment
and sudden sadness
like the first love.
It is so fresh and light blue
as if its silent undersea forests
clutched by serpentine seaweeds,
its leafless ivy,
would shine through
its limpidity.
They are caught from cold slides
of fishes made of majolica and silver,
winged like mute birds
between stiffened corals:
its ever-flowering peach trees.
The shells are still swallows.
The dead cuttlefishes are huge fireflies,
deaf lanterns
of drowned divers,
lights for castways in danger.
A boat with a huge sail
looks like a drifter
standing at a crossroads
under an umbrella
waiting for the downpour to stop.
I fanali e i mendicanti
Nella pioggia i fanali tra gli alberelli
dei marciapiedi
sembran file di mendicanti
che vanno in elemosina
nude le teste e scalzi i piedi
sotto i loro verdi ombrelli
simili a grandi aureole di santi.
The lights and the beggars
In the rain the lights among the tiny trees
of the pavements
look like lines of beggars
living on charity
bareheaded and barefoot
under their green umbrellas
like great saints’ haloes.
Il prato e le nuvole
È cessato or ora il temporale
e il prato verde odora
di menta glaciale.
È un immenso fruscio di pioggia
che sgocciola lenta lenta
lungo i tremuli fili d’erba,
dalle ciglia rosee dei fiori,
dalle labbra bianche dei fiori.
Laggiù il cielo sereno
è il grande innaffiatoio di smalto azzurro
col manico variopinto dell’arcobaleno.
The lawn and the clouds
Just now the thunderstorm stopped
and the green lawn smells
of glacial mint.
It is a vast rustle of rain
that drips slowly slowly
along the tremulous blades of grass,
from the pinky eyelashes of flowers,
from the white lips of flowers.
Over there the clear sky
is a blue, enamel watering-can
with it multicoloured handle of the rainbow.

Chiara Salomoni is a poet and translator. Her poems appear on Vivienne Westwood’s website and in The Blue Nib. She is currently translating poetry by Corrado Govoni, Silvio Ramat and by Andrea Zanzotto. She read from her translations at the Poetry Library. She is a member of the Tideway Poets

Corrado Govoni (1884-1965) was a prolific writer of poetry, prose and drama. He joined the Futuristic Movement and collaborated on Marinetti’s Notebooks but his crepuscular way of writing remained a characteristic in his poetry set in agricultural landscapes. Govoni was the president of PEN Club Italia in 1938.
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lovely!
A joy to read, thank you for making these poems accessible.
Lovely poems, beautifully translated – complimenti Chiara!