CLAUDIA AZZOLA
The Trees
No free playing on language, nor
words stretched to extremes
or any reference will suffice
to tell the layers of the stony, crusty
greenery of mountain trees, exposed
to the blast, the precipitate of the wind,
shapes also of the mind,
congenial to the deep memory,
no abstract space, sentient in nature,
arboreal bodies, disiecta membra,
and yet compact; regret not to be
of their lot, naturaliter: man is
in nature but stands outside nature.
Here is no fat land left to metamorphosis
into winters’ wetland, forerunner
of green-azure grassland,
space thick full: between trunks
there dwells a touch of blue, somber
in the earth’s entrails: perhaps
only where the tops of beeches,
of sharp pine-trees, of airy plane-trees
dissolve into particles
of gold ray, there a glimmer passes
of mutual relation of arm and trunk,
of hand and foliage, of breath
and trees generating trees.
This poem was published in Traduzionetradizione, issue No. 11 (2015-2016). The Italian version is part of Claudio Zanini’s artist book, the images of which are in this article.
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