Antonia Pozzi
Two poems translated from the Italian by Sonya Gray Redi
Confide
I have much faith in you. I feel
I could wait for your voice
in silence, for centuries
of darkness.
You know all the secrets,
like the sun:
you could make wild
geraniums and orange blossoms bloom
in the depths of stone
quarries, of legendary
prisons.
I have much faith in you. I am calm
like the Arab wrapped
in a white burnous
who listens to God ripen
the barley around his home.
December 8, 1934
Love of Distance
I remember how, when I was
in my mom’s house, in middle of the plain,
I had a window facing
a pasture; towards the end, the wooded bank
hid the Ticino and, further down,
there was a dark ribbon of hills.
At the time, I’d only seen the sea
once, and yet I conserved
a lover’s bitter nostalgia for it.
At dusk I’d stare at the horizon;
I would squint a bit, caressing
its contours and colors between my lashes;
and the ribbon of hills would unfurl,
trembling, azure: it looked like the sea to me
and I liked it better than the real sea.
Milan, April 24, 1929
Antonia Pozzi (1912–1938) was an Italian poet. Her poems were never published during her lifetime.
Sonya Gray Redi is a writer and translator from San Francisco.