Eugenio Montale, translated from Italian by George Kalogeris
TENTAVA LA VOSTRA MANO LA TASTIERA

Tentatively you touched the keyboard, and paused,
scanning intently as if you knew the score
impossible to play, all the chords
suddenly tense as a throat tightened by grief.
Watching you stop the music, looking so lost

before the language that was most your own,
tenderness seemed to spread across the room.
One window was still half-open, and there it was clear
the crystalline waves were breaking, softly enough
to mutter something just beyond the frame.

Now the butterflies passed, but not before
we saw them dance across the window’s azure.
A branch quivered, touched by the rays of the sun.
But nothing around us came to light in words,
and your gentle ignorance was mine, was ours.

NB: This poem was included in a December 2017 broadside created by Arrowsmith Press to honor the poet Melissa Green.

<< return to the Table of Contents for New Series #1: Summer 2008, Volume 1 Number 1