As/Is







3.09.2014


To a friend of mine

by Guido Monte


translated by Giulia Greco

photo by Pippo Zimmardi



you carried your body with dignity, you walked around

rises and limpid waters of ancient lands,

and thinking about the old well of pozzale,

a place of meditation, you said.



even drinking a drop of water,

even seeing a place, for you

that was a way to wait the soul,

you loved the poor things that

had memory, no more tales.

you were pleased with living images,

with a funeral of dolls and a man

who turns back, or with animals

invisible to the others.



and even your water sounds,

the simple benches, a daisy to caress

when you lied down on the grass.

a trickle of water between the rocks was

your elementary life. you looked for

an organ to repeat water noises.

you heard deeply felt chorus

of devout armenians, you touched the sky

far from our robot-life,

you found the answer

for no-answer questions, thinking

of a clown who sweeps away the dust from the mirror

and follows a butterfly, thinking of the deads’ whisper.



at the end you sit down, again, in the garden,

while your wife is picking up a fallen petal

and is burying it according to an oriental rite,

i see you there, eternally, even if you rest

just like boats that sleep, tired

and ancient, on the dried up ground of aral lake.