Risanamento Giovanni Raboni Di tutto questo non c’è più niente (o forse qualcosa s’indovina, c’è ancora qualche strada acciottolata a mezzo, un’osteria). Qui, diceva mio padre, conveniva venirci col coltello … Eh sì, il Naviglio è a due passi, la nebbia era più forte prima che lo coprissero … Ma quello che hanno fatto, distruggere le case, distruggere quartieri, qui e altrove, a cosa serve? Il male non era lì dentro, nelle scale, nei cortili, nei ballatoi, lì semmai c’era umido da prendersi un malanno. Se mio padre fosse vivo, chiederei anche a lui: ti sembra che serva? e il modo? A me sembra che il male non è mai nelle cose, gli direi.
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Restoration Giovanni Raboni Of all this there is nothing left (or perhaps something can be perceived, a road or two still cobbled in part, a tavern). Here, my father would say, you had to carry a knife…Yes, the Naviglio* is a stone’s throw away, the fog was thicker before they buried it…But what they did, destroying the houses, destroying neighbourhoods, here and elsewhere, what good was it? The evil was not in there, in the stairwells, in the courtyards, in the galleries, if anything there it was humid enough to make you sick. If my father were alive, I’d ask him: what good do you think it did? and the way they did it? I believe evil is never in the things, I’d tell him. . Translation ©Matilda Colarossi 2019 |
Giovanni Raboni’s poetry rotates around two main themes: Reality and memory. In the poem Risanamento, written in the mid-fifties, these two elements come together perfectly. What we have is a picture, a bitter reflection, of the times we are living. His easy tone, tranquil almost, does not take away from the harsh message: we look for evil in what surrounds us, in the streets, in the quarters, but it isn’t a part of what lies outside. It is an evil we carry inside. The title of the poem, Risanamento, can be translated in a variety of ways: recovery, reorganization, renovation, rebuilding…I opted for restoration, because in it I found the sense the poem had for me, that is, that humanity, not the urban landscape, is really the only thing that needs to be restored.
*Naviglio: a channel that runs through Milan.
The poem Risanamento is from the collection A tanto caro sangue (1988).
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