And yet the very gentle one by Mario Tobino

18 May 2017

Eppure il così gentile

Mario Tobino

Esiste questa vita
nel lampo del sole.
Siamo noi
che la trasportiamo
con le mosche,
i pensieri tristi e vaghi,
le albe di latte malato.
Siamo noi
in un deserto senza confini.
Eppure il così gentile
c’è tra di noi
che a volte fa brillare
come una primavera
la sua intelligenza:
un breve vento di bosco
in un sogno di delitti.

And yet the very gentle one

Mario Tobino

This life exists
in the flash of the sun.
We are the ones
who transport it
with the flies,
the thoughts sad and vague,
the dawns of toxic milk.
We are the ones
in a desert without confines.
And yet the very gentle one
is among us
and at times he sets alight
like a springtime
his intelligence:
a brisk woodland wind
in a dream of wrongdoings.

Translation ©Matilda Colarossi

Mario Tobino was an Italian poet, writer and psychiatrist. He began his career as a poet but later wrote mostly novels. His work is profoundly autobiographical, and deals mostly with social and psychological themes. Between spring and autumn of 1944 Tobino was active in the liberation of Italy from Nazi-fascist oppression. His experience as a partisan greatly contributed to his growth as a writer.

The poem is from the collection “Asso di Picche *Veleno e amore Secondo”, Arnoldo Mondadori Editore, 1974.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.