12 short poems for Aldo
Ci sono cose che si scrivono per l'urgenza di scriverle. Certo, tutto ciò che si scrive è il frutto di una necessità improrogabile: lo si tira fuori perché non si può farne a meno, ma è comunque il risultato di una sedimentazione. Io mi riferisco però a un'altra urgenza, quella suscitata da avvenimenti improvvisi, che si impongono per la loro forza ai nostri pensieri. Ho impiegato anni per scrivere un romanzo breve come Dialogo di pesce con umani, eppure i fatti di cui parla mi hanno colpito enormemente: solo per caso nel 2001 non sono andato a Genova.
In rete, navigando nel sito dedicato ad Aldo Bianzino, veritaperaldo, ho trovato queste dodici poesie di Jane Oliensis. Leggendole, si capisce che chi le ha scritte ha conosciuto la persona morta, probabilmente uccisa, poco tempo prima. Una di seguito all'altra danno vita a quello che letterariamente si definisce un lamento. Mi ha impressionato come il dolore recente (l'urgenza) fosse espresso in una forma sedimentata. Bisogna essere autori, per farlo, in questo caso poeti.
Jane Oliensis mi ha dato il permesso di replicare le poesie nel mio sito. Per me, sono un esempio di come la letteratura si coniughi all'umanità. Del resto, la letteratura è un'altra forma di storia dell'Umanità.
1
My foot's been aching all day
from the damn Ikea chest of drawers that fell on it
eight months ago
and Aldo is dead.
I've been thinking about fragility all day long,
how pain remembers pain
and Aldo is dead.
Argentina said he had beautiful green eyes
but I never noticed.
He was beautiful.
He was
2
It's fall, yes, that season,
orange for pungency and red for fire and charred remains,
the funerary urn he never had -
so customary in Umbria.
I'll put a saw on his and sand paper.
These rough edges will never be smooth.
And a goofy paintbrush.
3
I never knew him very well,
but can't bear to think of him becoming a ghost.
The sparkling glasses,
whimsical constellation.
4
I will build that walkway
from the terrace to the garden shed
with the six crazy canvas swings
blue-and-green-striped sails
gusting under it, or still
in memory of you.
5
Always worrying about everyone else,
you cared so much.
Your son’s missed exam, almost missed,
in the end he made it.
Your wife’s persistent hepatitis, too scared
to go to the hospital, in the end
she’ll have to. In the end,
your liver was crushed, your spleen
crushed –“internal injuries.”
I am suffering from internal injuries now.
I had to look up spleen (milsa) in the dictionary,
kept finding militia.
6
You were the first person I talked to
when I came home after Melina had been born
and discovered a new solitude.
Gentle, so gentle.
dear carpenter with deft hands
always building.
You seem to have always been around for the passages.
I wish I could have given you
a thimbleful of sympathy
your last hard time.
7
He asked for water three times
and the soldiers mocked him.
The guard walked back and forth in his pentameter.
8
The water of life …
Several of the inmates heard you ‘complaining”
that Sunday morning before you were pronounced dead.
Work on your pronunciation, young man.
What can beauty do?
I lunge between you and the crow bar.
9
Invite all the pigeons
to the international conference on torture
10
Prison is a closed circle.
The rooms don't usually have views
of the ocean (i.e. infinity) or snow
which is so often a benediction
or apple trees (okay pink) and white
blush of becoming
Nor can we see in the non-existent shuttered windows
and this increases the gravity of the parenthesis.
O, symbol of perfection
11
It is reasonable to be comforted by the coverage
in the local, and the national, and the international press,
to be pleased by the vindication
of the right to information,
but what is reasonable in grief
in the defenseless protagonist of all the hoopla,
his splintered family?
12
May they apply soothing balms to all your wounds,
inner and outer, visible and invisible
(the old wet-towel technique, perfected by fascism),
wrap you in vestments, drenched in cinnamon and myrrh,
and launch you on your buoyant journey.
And may the accordion of the waves
sustain you with a few of your favorite tunes
and bear you honorably
to wherever you would most like to be.
Le poesie sono apparse online per la prima volta sul mensile umbro Micropolis il 27/01/2008. Potete leggere la versione italiana qui.
Jane Oliensis vive sulle colline di Assisi con la sua famiglia, tre simpatici cani e due gatti. Scrive, insegna, ed è presidente dell’associazione culturale Humanities Spring di Assisi.