The Memory II

by Marcello Comitini

The wound opened by the sun in the clouds,
she lights the bare tops of the trees
and the cold wind angrily
breaks the branches, tears off the last leaves,
brings out the memories
from the painful well of memory.
The corpses drink
from the marble of the tombstones
the extinguished fire of words
forgotten by the survivors.
The men who still resist
clinging to branches like crows
have their eyes clouded by frost.
We will meet again in the spring – they shout
from their branches to the four winds of the world –

Happy men that the frost
has only made, your stiff mind
think of summer.
Forget the melancholy of winter
that kills those who do not have the strength to defend themselves.
Enjoy the thought of the warm months
that will give us the skin as a blanket
and the hopes as ballast to resist the wind.
We’ll make it, be calm.

I listen.
Their optimism flows like a stream
under the crust of frost, it infects the world
makes him forgetful.
I observe the leaves piled up in the corners
they take shelter under the arcades fraternally
like the poor the forgotten.
Alone and tired
they carry in every season the wounds of memory
which leads us straight into the heart of life.