VIBURNUM
It’s that hedge - mother said -
not a pleasant smell – maybe she meant
the musty, earthy, faintly sweet breath
that is now coming in from the night
through the chink in the shutter.
A spreading, close vein, from
the surrounding, lingering, dark layers –
no, not a pleasant smell, but not exactly unpleasant
and so full, so heady – I think, while
entering my bed that is spacious here
in the countryside, like the lay of the land.
Spacious, with scattered rustlings and voices,
elusive, as ever, like the fox’s call
you heard in the alert
wide sleep of the meadows,
the needle of a call you wanted to grasp.
I am lying in the loamy roots of this smell now,
in bed, still awake. Still.
Yes, sleep has always been far from me,
I should learn to stop courting it in vain,
my feet feel the miles under the sheets,
the miles of scents staring and scuttling.
I was born over there you know,
just across the road where
the gravel path has grown grassy,
where the viburnum hedges are thicker,
where the dark-bright earth
spreads forth without reserve
its sweat, breath and cheeks
where the mossy night churns the map of the countenances.
WHAT AFTER
There’s an unfathomable stare in this sea you love
and a simplicity that makes you hardly raise your eyes,
the gulls’ cries in the silvery rainy day,
the quietness without wind,
an immobility and a wait,
an unconcerned determination
in the roar on shore
and in the horizon’s bareness.
After the bustle of your last battle
how many other lives would you need
to stick to the unknown
immeasurable ”what after”
WAITING
Brakes screech. How long
the red light? The train stops.
Voices fade
in a crowd of seconds
and sky dots.
It’s purity, bear it.
Things tick
on the silence-skin.
No compromise,
the blue gaze of nothing
will not give in.
WHAT YOU LEFT
Memories of you strutting and fretting
in your room, in your armchair,
in your strapped sky, in the cage of your life.
And anger, and too much painful ado
about nothing.
You grabbed the hours consuming them far too early,
with noise and hurry, leaving
scattered leftovers and silence.
And at the end, in the end most of us fear,
after the howls and recriminations
and the sulking of endless seconds
you just fell asleep.
It all comes down to this.
And to what you left, then, beyond the memories:
good, neatly trimmed shirts and coats,
your armchair, your slippers, your vest,
a camera, a record-player, books on mountaineering
and this gold wristwatch I am now wearing:
it’s noon on its hand and face,
full noon, with glittering sunbeams
and a spacious beach where I can forget you failed.
Things can redeem.
SAND
Nobody on the beach,
just you and your dog.
Wholeness of the deserted
grey velvet air and sand
you just cut into
by walking, and that pulses
like bare skin.
Sand is one with your arms
throwing sticks your dog grabs
and chews one by one, teeth
sinking into bountiful chance
with sky forwardness.
Sand is one with saliva and sparkling
wood splinters that itch
your palms and fingers.
After dashing, exploding into it,
muzzle, nose, fangs, paws,
now she trots at last, pants
calm beside you on the crumbled shells
by the foam line’s eternity.
By the surf, calm too, another tongue
assisting the silence.
You leave and there’s sand, a lot,
as ever all over you, on your neck,
in the corners of your eyes, in your shoes.
And a line of grit like running
sparks in your teeth. You know
you will do nothing to get rid of it,
it tastes like the crumbs of heaven
and will linger scattered
in all your creases.
***
Davide Trame
