(no subject)
Death Agony
-Cesare Pavese
I'll wander around the streets until I'm dead tired
I'll learn to live alone and look every passing face
square in the eye and still stay what I am.
This coolness rising in me and reaching for my veins
is a morning waking I've never felt before,
never so real. Except I feel stronger
than my body, and this morning's shiver is colder than ever.
The mornings I had when I was twenty seem long ago.
And tomorrow, twenty-one: tomorrow I'll walk down the streets
I remember every cobble and the shafts of sunlight.
Starting tomorrow people will begin to see me
and I’ll walk straight and stop for a while
and inspect myself in the windows. There were mornings once
when I was young and didn’t know it. I didn’t even know
the person passing was me-a woman, her own
mistress. The skinny little girl I used to be
was wakened by a wail of grief that lasted for years:
now it’s as though that grief had never been.
And all I want is colors. Colors don’t cry,
they’re like a waking up. Tomorrow the colors
will all come back. Every woman will walk down the street,
every body will be a color-even the children.
This body of mine will wear light red
will live again after all those colorless years.
I’ll feel the glances of men go gliding around me
and I’ll know I’m me: just a look and I’ll see
I’m there, like other people. In the cool of the mornings
I’ll step out in the streets, I’ll go looking for colors.
trans. William Arrowsmith
-Cesare Pavese
I'll wander around the streets until I'm dead tired
I'll learn to live alone and look every passing face
square in the eye and still stay what I am.
This coolness rising in me and reaching for my veins
is a morning waking I've never felt before,
never so real. Except I feel stronger
than my body, and this morning's shiver is colder than ever.
The mornings I had when I was twenty seem long ago.
And tomorrow, twenty-one: tomorrow I'll walk down the streets
I remember every cobble and the shafts of sunlight.
Starting tomorrow people will begin to see me
and I’ll walk straight and stop for a while
and inspect myself in the windows. There were mornings once
when I was young and didn’t know it. I didn’t even know
the person passing was me-a woman, her own
mistress. The skinny little girl I used to be
was wakened by a wail of grief that lasted for years:
now it’s as though that grief had never been.
And all I want is colors. Colors don’t cry,
they’re like a waking up. Tomorrow the colors
will all come back. Every woman will walk down the street,
every body will be a color-even the children.
This body of mine will wear light red
will live again after all those colorless years.
I’ll feel the glances of men go gliding around me
and I’ll know I’m me: just a look and I’ll see
I’m there, like other people. In the cool of the mornings
I’ll step out in the streets, I’ll go looking for colors.
trans. William Arrowsmith