“It’s not true they’ve destroyed / the homes, it’s not true…”
| Rovine Carlo Betocchi Non è vero che hanno distrutto le case, non è vero: solo è vero in quel muro diruto l’avanzarsi del cielo a piene mani, a pieno petto, dove ignoti sognarono, o vivendo sognare credettero, quelli che son spariti… Ora spetta all’ombra spezzata il gioco d’altri tempi, sopra i muri, nell’alba assolata, imitarne gli incerti… e nel vuoto, alla rondine che passa. | Ruins Carlo Betocchi It’s not true they’ve destroyed the homes, it’s not true: it’s true though in that tumbling wall the sky is advancing by the handful, by the chestful, where unknowns dreamt, or living believed they dreamt, those who have disappeared… Now is the broken shadow’s turn that game of yesteryear, over the walls, in the sunlit dawn, to imitate the uncertainties … and in the void, that of the passing swallow. Translation ©Matilda Colarossi 2025 |
Shocked, incredulous, the poet finds himself before a house in ruins, “It’s not true they’ve destroyed / the homes, it’s not true”, but he soon understands it is the result of war , “those who have disappeared”, and what fills him then is a desire for the infinite, eternity, which is fulfilled when the sky advances, filling the spaces among the remains, and the flight of a swallow takes the place of the dreams and illusions that once inhabited that home.
I found this poem perfect for today’s world, for the wars we try to look away from, ever incredulous that they continue to destroy the homes, continue to make humans disappear. – M.C
For more about Carlo Betocchi here, https://paralleltexts.blog/tag/carlo-bertocchi/, and here. For more poems by the poet, here: https://www.garzanti.it/libri/carlo-betocchi-tutte-le-poesie-9788811606666/.
This work is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
parallel texts: words reflected 
Ruine, un poem ca o lacrimă curajoasă.
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pretty! 5 2025 Cesare Pavese: Tu non sai le colline / You don’t know the hills incredible
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