Gioia d’angeli

Arturo Onofri

Gioia d’angeli: assalti contro il sole

di candori di corpi femminili

che sinfòniano faune giganti

e nevicano giù (su lame d’acqua

d’antiquate pozzanghere) in sopori

di climi entro la polpa delle bestie

seminate sui pascoli prativi.

 

Gioia d’angeli: calda aria sbattuta

nel respiro volatile dei pioppi

lungo i fiumi dell’erba, che in sue lance

di luce (in pugno a silfidi fanciulle)

òssida il sangue in stelle e in trafitture

che boccheggiano, in nome di sorelle,

lampi di fiori in riva al cielo nero.

 

Gioia d’angeli: tuoni di silenzio

esplosi entro i basalti vertebrali

nel petto della terra. Per crearne

fughe di gnomi a fior delle caverne

su vulcani e su alpi: commoventi

prove di terremoti e cicli d’astri

perché l’insieme degli dèi sia vita.

 

Gioia d’angeli: il mio essere al mondo.

Joy of angels

Arturo Onofri

Joy of angels: assaults on the sun

by the candour of feminine bodies

that symphony gigantic fauna

and snow down(on blades of water

of antique puddles) in sopors

of climates within the flesh of beasts

sowed on grassy pastures.

 

Joy of angels: scalding air pounded

in the volatile breath of the poplars

along the rivers of the grass, which in its swords

of light (in the hands of young sylphs)

oxidises blood in stars and in piercings

that gasp, in the name of sisters,

bolts of flowers along the banks of the black sky.

 

Joy of angels: thunder of silence

exploded within the vertebral basalt

in the bosom of the earth. To create there

fugues of gnomes upon the face of the caverns

on volcanoes and alps: touching

trials of earthquakes and series of asters

so the sum of the gods may be life.

 

Joy of angels: my being in the world.

 

Translation ©Matilda Colarossi 2020

This is perhaps the most beautiful poem I have ever read, and I believe it is a n honour to translate it.

More about the poet: http://poesia.blog.rainews.it/2014/06/poeti-da-riscoprire-arturo-onofri/

http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/arturo-onofri_%28Dizionario-Biografico%29/Image: Peter Paul Rubens, La caduta di Icaro, 1636

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.