Photo © Theodore Ell
Poetry Editor’s note: Contrappasso bids a sad farewell to Giorgio Orelli, who passed away this morning at the age of 92. Below are the five poems of Orelli’s that appeared in Issue 3, translated by Marco Sonzogni. The original Italian version of each poem appears first, followed by its translation in blue.
*
Quelle farfalle brune,
le più comuni forse del mondo,
immancabili ai nostri picnic
d’agosto quando vagano come stordite dal fiume,
quasi m’hanno sfiorato
sulla collina, zelante drappello
e cauto, che, non più vagando, ha raggiunto
i fiori lilla su gambi lunghi e lì,
perfettamente combaciando le ali,
ognuna su un fiore pareva
suggere il paradiso:
né tu né io quest’anno ci saremmo
ricordati del nostro anniversario
se d’improvviso riaprendosi, prima
di volar via, l’una non avesse,
e l’altra e l’altra, un attimo, mostrato
un 8 limpidissimo, arancione.
(Il collo dell’anitra, 2001)
–
Those brown butterflies,
the most common in the world perhaps,
guaranteed at our August
picnics, when they wander as if dazed by the river,
they’ve almost touched me
on the hill, a diligent and careful
squad which, no longer wandering, has reached
the tall lilac flowers and there,
joining their wings perfectly,
each one on a flower seemed
to suck on paradise:
this year neither you nor I would have
remembered our anniversary
had not one, and then another and yet another,
shown for a moment, opening
all of a sudden before flying away,
the clearest, orange, 8.
(The Duck’s Neck, 2011)
*
D’autunno
Felinamente in giallo
viscido di salamandra
tra siepe e asfalto: neanche la faccia
gli ho visto al ragazzo che in bici
quasi m’investe allo svolto.
Tanto fitto pioveva e di traverso
che alle vacche vicino al liceo
l’anima s’annegrava:
in gruppo, stralunate,
disprezzavano l’erba,
mute muggivano al cielo.
(Spiracoli, 1989)
–
In autumn
Catlike in the salamander’s
slimy yellow
between the hedge and the tarmac: I didn’t even
see the face of the boy who
almost ran over me at the bend with his bike.
The rain was hosing down sideways
so much that it darkened the mood of the cows
near the high school:
in groups, dazed,
they forsook the grass,
and lowed miserably at the sky.
(Outlines, 1989)
*
Per Agostino
Per noi silenziosi
e freddi nelle mani che toccano
le canne del fucile chiamerà
la luna il tasso fuori della tana?
Ora sono fuggiti gli scoiattoli
che si rincorrevano a coppie sui pini:
la sera che ascoltiamo le canzoni
spegnersi tra le stalle dove crepita
acre la nostra infanzia,
forse gloriosamente
muore l’estate.
Ai boschi bruni, alle pietre più grige
ci riconosciremmo: anticamente
fedeli come gli occhi degli amici.
E sarà il tempo che le pernici
desteranno col loro canto i pascoli.
(L’ora del tempo, 1962)
–
For Agostino
As we wait, silent
and our hands cold on the barrel
of the rifle will the moon
bring the badger out of his sett?
Now the squirrels have gone
away in pairs among the pine trees:
the evening when we listen to songs
fades among the stables where our acrid
childhood rustles away,
perhaps the summer ends
gloriously.
In the brown woods, in the greyer stones
we will find ourselves: as in times past
faithful like the eyes of friends.
And it will be the time when the partridges’
calls awaken the pastures.
(The Instant of Time, 1962)
*
Campolungo
Per una costa già cara ai fagiani
giungo dove non ronzano i beati,
su un gran piano venato d’acque appena
rotte, dai margini qua e là
fioriti di piumini come neve.
Una nebbia s’insinua, allontana le vette.
Un’ansia mi caccia.
Mi fermo d’improvviso tra i calcestri
biancheggianti del passo, davanti
a uccelli dal collo di pietra.
. .Allo sparo
gallinette si levano, dileguano
nella nebbia che ora punge la memoria.
(L’ora del tempo, 1962)
–
Campolungo
Along a slope already familiar to the pheasants
I come to where the fortunate don’t hang around,
on a wide plain veined by newly emerged
streams, their banks scattered
with flowers like snow-flakes.
Fog creeps in, distances the mountaintops.
An anxiety hunts me.
I stop suddenly among the pale
crushed stones of the pass, in front of
stony-necked birds.
. .At my shot
the moorhens take flight, disappear
into the fog that now stings my memory.
(The Instant of Time, 1962)
*
Carnevale a Prato Leventina
È questa la Domenica Disfatta,
senza un grido né un volo dagli strani
squarci del cielo.
. .Ma le lepri
sui prati nevicati sono corse
invisibili, restano dell’orgia
silenziosa i discreti disegni.
I ragazzi nascosti nei vecchi
che hanno teste pesanti e lievi gobbe
entrano taciturni nelle case
dopocena: salutano con gesti
rassegnati.
. .Li seguo di lontano,
mentre affondano dolci nella neve.
(L’ora del tempo, 1962)
–
Carnival at Prato Leventina
This is Black Sunday,
no cry nor a flutter in the strange
breaks in the sky.
. .But on the snowy meadows
the hares have run off
unseen, the discreet traces
of their silent orgy linger on.
The young lads now hidden in old men
with heavy heads and bent backs
go home silently
after dinner: they exchange resigned
gestures.
. .I follow them from far away,
as they sink softly into the snow.
(The Instant of Time, 1962)
*
ABOUT THE POET AND THE TRANSLATOR
Giorgio Orelli was born in 1921 in Airolo, in the Canton of Ticino in Switzerland. From his debut (Né bianco né viola, 1944) he was regarded as a significant voice among contemporary poets writing in Italian. After attending university at Freiburg, where he was a student of Gianfranco Contini, Orelli taught Italian literature and history at the Scuola Cantonale di Commercio in Bellinzona and lectured at several Swiss and Italian universities. A published short story writer (Un giorno della vita, 1960), literary critic (from Accertamenti verbali in 1978 to La qualità del senso in 2012) and translator, most notably of Goethe’s poetry (Poesie, 1974), Orelli was the author of several collections of poems: L’ora del tempo (1962), a selection of his work from his 20s to his 40s; Sinopie (1977); Spiracoli (1989); Il collo dell’anitra (2001). Orelli’s new book, L’orlo della vita, will be published soon. For his poetry, widely translated into French and German, Orelli received many awards, including the Gran Premio Schiller in Switzerland (1998) and the Premio Bagutta in Italy (2002).
Marco Sonzogni (born in 1971) lives in Wellington, New Zealand. He holds degrees from the University of Pavia (Almo Collegio Borromeo), University College Dublin, Trinity College Dublin, Victoria University of Wellington and the University of Auckland. He is a widely published and award-winning editor, poet and literary translator, now Senior Lecturer in Italian with the School of Languages and Cultures at Victoria University of Wellington, where is also the Director of the New Zealand Centre for Literary Translation. His literary translation projects include Swiss-Italian poets (Oliver Scharpf, Alberto Nessi, Pietro De Marchi, Fabiano Alborghetti, Giorgio Orelli), New Zealand poets, and the collected poems of Seamus Heaney (Meridiano). Marco wishes to thank Giorgio Orelli for his kindness and generosity, and Pietro De Marchi and Bob Lowe for their support and contribution.
Contrappasso Magazine: International Writing 