Cover: “Jeanne d’Arc” © Marco Desscouleurs – Fotolia.com

Translation by Serena Carnemolla

Preface

Poetries and “canvas” painted at twilight, the time for meditation.
Reading these compositions requires silence, peace, and the disposition to open mind and soul to accept what we’ll receive without reserves. Acceptance, with the lucid serenity of the wise, is therefore the key attitude for reading these poems. While we read, a flow of images, fleeting as memories, arises in front of us; visions, sometimes difficult to interpret, as confused and undefined as dreams can be. And yet, within this tangle of reveries we perceive something else; a dark silhouette, a guide, an orchestra conductor that evokes the visions; a voice that whispers “Fear not. Let it be, ’cause all is well. Now, look…”

It is what the poet does. In each composition he places himself in front of his soul’s mirror and observes, with an open mind, ready to receive what he’ll be shown. He opens his soul and his own time appears to him; memories, emotions, hopes, illusions, pain, solitude, happiness. He enters dark, enchanted woods. Nature acts as mediator between the man (“hunter in sparks”, “running child”) and his truer self – the Truth? Or the secret for his joy? It’s a Nature populated by spirits, elves, and voices in the wind that awaken only at twilight. They are benevolent beings, spirit guides whom initiate the spell. They show the wayfarer his time and his deepest self. A confused succession of summers, winters, autumns, and a weaving of lights that stands out violent and painful upon the darkness’ canvas – as is the essence of human life: a wonderful blend of glittering lights, whose brilliance would not be so splendid were it not for the black mantle where they burgeon and thrive. Darkness is fundamental. There is no war, there are no conflicts or cruelties within the Universe lattice, and suffering finds its own fundamental role within the order of a Nature that radiates love, as it spreads its arms to embrace all its creatures. Evil, as a dominant and destructive force, only exists inside the disarranged mind, finding no place in the universe here described. Even winter smiles because, as every other trial and suffering, it does not kill but transfigure.

Journey is the main theme.
The pilgrim – the poet, and us with him – walks along an endless road, a path that symbolizes his (and our) life, and his (ours!) long and difficult rediscovery of himself. He travels alone, accepting both pains and wonders that he encounters along the way. Only solitude allows him to fully absorb and meditate his new experiences. It is a solid, concrete solitude, paradoxically a travel companion. A thought, however, accompanies and encourages him: his return. His home, the affections that wait for him; a place, real or metaphysical, where to rest, a nest where to abandons himself to quiet, where he’ll be allowed a break from his search for himself, tasting at last that he discovered in his wandering; a pause in a journey that cannot and must not be interrupted. The return is a thought that lingers in the pilgrim’s mind, but it is neither a destination nor every day’s life. It is an ideal that supports him, a promise of relief and refreshment, because there is no rest in the path, just a continuous becoming of the way and of the wayfarer (“For you who are […] the magic the laugh the cry / of my grayness days […] / on the never ending journey / I’ll direct my eyes.”)

The journey is “a rope hanging on the sea (that) enchains dreams”. The walk of the wayfarer unfolds along two dimensions: the real and the metaphysical. Landscapes (the real) slide fast along infinite distances. The pilgrim captures only fragments of sceneries and glimpses of life, and his sensations are often confused. Over time, as they merge with his memories and dreams, they eventually take shape and body. He is able to understand his experiences only by examining them through the tissue of his memory (the metaphysical), by reviewing and reliving them once again in his soul while continuing the journey.
The journey transforms and reveals. It tries because it is unpredictable, at times painful, difficult, and lonely. The travel hurts the pilgrim because it requires humbleness, persistence, and that every step follows another step. The travel requires from him simplicity, silence and solitude, which allow him to meditate, discover and transcend himself (“my wounds are sprinkled of loneliness, in this high cirrus sing I suffer and walk”). This is all necessary and good, the wayfarer knows that: it is the Black Master that accompanies him, invisible behind his shoulders, observing him as he advances exhausted, crying, or in awe for some new wonder. But there is no cruelty. The Master is Black, but he still is a Master, and by his hard ways he wants nothing but good for his disciple.

Nobody can state he knows the value of something until he experiments its lack. As in a black and white picture we capture details far more easily than inside a colours’ storm, so it happens that only in the privation of light (friendship, love, health, hope… and also flowers, music, laughter, blue skies…) we can really feel how painfully it is precious and necessary to us. In this context, the violent contrasts of light and shadows that the wayfarer experiences (“brighten flame burning and cold”, “shining as a casket / of quartz and alabaster / in the darkest night”, “white marble stair / in the black night”) exert an immense power within the process of his transformation. They allow him to feel the truest essence of what he has lost, of what is far away from him. He finally tastes their heart stopping beauty, and he understands, after long labour, what real joy is. Is this perhaps the dream, the hope, the mysterious force that moves his steps?

“When mystic flute sounds
I’ll follow the way”
“The trail of dreams
winds far afield,
overstepping horizons,
inscribed lawns by the wind”

Why is the wayfarer undertaking this journey? What drives him?
He does not know. His steps are moved by an instinct, an anxiety, a burning need to go on, searching for… What exactly? The mysterious charm of his interior jungle scares and entices him. He feels he must go ahead, in the sun and in the cold. It’s not a pleasant stroll, it’s a challenging adventure animated by anxiety and torment – and by the joy that awakens and slowly grows within his heart. It is a journey without a destination, because there is no ultimate goal, and the travel discovers its value only within itself.

“Stop you, your journey is vain.
Don’t ask me that, I’m arrived yet. In this moon night, travel is my destination”

The path originates little by little. Nothing is prearranged. It is a road made by experiences, emotions, visions. Along the path the wayfarer sees many things. His time appears to him as a long ribbon whose extremities disappear far away, in a past full of memories, in a future of fuzzy hopes.

“thousands of streams dancing in the melody of immovable time, sky’s and stars’ smile, face of the sun, faint path of moonliht, mystic dance on the darkness of night bonfires.”

Time is therefore the main coordinate of his pilgrimage, as space is not real or it’s simply secondary. His time appears like a mixture of seasons, of sunrises and sunsets, and of periods of life. The seasons of the past intertwine with each other as they resurface to the memory (“spring time, / winter of starlight, / childhood and woods in summertime”). It is the wayfarer’s time that defines the path. He absorbs it and, from its substance, he learns how to move his steps.

“Between waves of time
the fixed sea
covers shoulders
like a red mantle
holding the eternity.”

During his journey, the wayfarer often meditates on his childhood, which appears to him as a sweet but distant vision. Childhood comes before the fatal settling of the man in the World, with its restrictions and the consequent hypocrisies. Then comes Anxiety, and the long Wandering begins. Childhood is behind him. It is asleep because he repudiated it. It is a nostalgic ideal, glimpsed by him during his torment, the hope of a return to the purity and freedom of children. The wayfarer craves for that bliss (“the lighting of childhood along the way odorous of wool and warmth and glasses misted in the return”). The travel, by removing, piece by piece, the crust that grew to cover and harden his soul as he settled into the World, allows him to return to Childhood.

“Embrace light with enchanted hands, in blazing night […] there where the time has innocent accents of the pureness yearned by immortal voices.”

The pilgrim travels and meditates. He accepts and patiently waits. He allows visions to come to him without forcing them. He receives and meditates everything that is presented to him. Mediator of this process is the Nature that surrounds him (“Like shards of wind in intertwined leaves, soft rime petals fall in spring”), a Nature endowed of faces, hands, voices, a joyful Nature that, animated by curiosity, observes him, touches him, whispers to his ears. His spirits talk to him, call him, guide him, accompany him (“shining voice / on the autumn path, / wellspring chant”). It happens at twilight. After the sunset, his journey continues – but is it dream or reality? Sleep stifles rationality, giving way to dreams and magic (“in the velvet of the night reopened to the inner canticle”). His travel enters a new dimension: the kingdom of the Nature’s spirits. The road enters deep into the forest, which during the night awakes and populates with spirits that whisper. But the pilgrim does not understand their language because they speak an arcane, mysterious idiom made of images and symbols. For too long he has not listened to Nature, and now he struggles to understand it. Why does it talk to him? Because he is part of Nature, son of the forest, of the sky, of the sea. The universe embraces him, and shares with him its immense energies. Eventually, the pilgrim transcends himself feeling a boundless happiness. He glorifies the living Nature (the angels, the elves, the Supreme, the voice in the wind…) that accompanies him without forcing his steps. He glorifies the creation and takes joy from its pain (“The shadow that sets on the sky’s edge”).

Travel is pervaded by a positive aura. There is no negativity or pessimism. The pilgrim accepts pain because he perceives it as benevolent, as a fundamental element within the tissue of life. There is hope in him, and a positive and happy expectation. Along the way, the pilgrim stops to exchange travel’s tales with other pilgrims. So they play music, they laugh, they sing, they dance.

“red wine […]
from hand to hand around a bonfire
between wayfarers who still to my gaits ‘echo,
on pathway, and dances and voices and winds
of smiles”

The beauty of the wayfarer’s merriment shines with childhood light, and with that happiness that seemed long lost and forgotten. It only takes a campfire, a flute and the company of other wayfarers, and the night sparkles and shines with lanterns (“Too much stars to sing”). At sunrise the pilgrim resumes his way, lighter, and more joyful. He knows that he is never really alone.

“In the limpidity of a never ending moment we see […] the eternal child within us – the man in his journey, the ancient who teaches”

The travel continues and brings “us” new experiences, pains, wonders. It brings them to “us” because, in fact, it is ourselves that, through the poet’s words, undertake the journey. He mediates between us and Nature, between what we became in the World and our truer self – our childhood. His doggerels take us along the path. We can vividly hear leaves’ rustling, flames’ crackle, wind’s whispers – and the echo of our own steps on the forest’s path. What will we learn from this journey? What will we discover within ourselves?

“Resurgent phoenix as an eternal chord, in the fragrant warm voice I embraced the eternity.”

Stefania Vaga

Minstrel Ballads

HURDY GURDY

Now that the world is clear in the white evening
I return along the river to observe
shining stars and scythes of ancient crops,
songs of millpond and moth’s enchantments
to the fires over hamlet’s edge
which weep hurdy-gurdy’s doggerels,
snowdrops and stones, lithesome flakes
and snowy comets, while red
wine laughs, lives and sounds of bells,
from hand to hand around a bonfire
between wayfarers who still to my gaits ‘echo,
on pathway, and dances and voices and winds
of smiles, until daylight and to the Orient
which rises in clear horns of the morning.

SONG OF THE JOURNEY

Green leaves whirl around
yellow leaves fall on the ground
once upon a spring time,
winter of starlight,
childhood and wood in summertime.

Man who journey,
man who return,
through fields and mists,
you’re waiting for the rest
in chants and embers.

Green leaves remind daylight,
yellow ones lay on the ground
along the path of the world;
winter is coming
and bites and grips
with his chilled fingertips.

Woman who laughs
on the winter song,
woman who dances
on the lyre and the flute,
you’re waiting for the return
from the journey and the world.

Green leaves whirl around,
the new ones bud,
vivid and green;
winter is fallen,
the sun has risen.Man who return
from faraway mists,
man who reborn
under the shiny moon
take off your mantle
jaded and worn.

Green leaves whirl around,
harvest sparkles
and the wind ascends;
bells sound
as music of the world.

Woman who waited
laughing in the cold
for the journey and return
for the pain and daylight
wear your dress
and colors of joy.

Green leaves whirl around,
bright flowers embroider the morning;
fires are alighted,
skies are reopened,
the wind are breathing.

Man who waited,
woman whose spirit
attends his steps,
now you drink the bowl
and the rising calyx.

Green leaves whirl around,
yellow leaves will change,
returned man
laughing woman
you will tread
the expected path.
Green leaves whirls around,
wind howls on a new journey;
moon and stars,
morning light,
eternity’s chant,
over winter time.

VALLEY

Bells
in the snowy night,
red wine
in the shiny oak,
crowns of clouds
faraway on the sea,

– stars on the cove,
branches in hair,
echoes through leaves.

Inlaid flames,
graved reflections
and irises laughs
to nimble harmonies
of voices in waterfalls
of silver vessels
of gilded hairs.

In summer light
the winter song shines.
Snowy bells
in the eventide.

NOVEMBER

November leaves are opening
falling on the brown door
over the red autumn;
necklaces of bellflowers
in the refrained memory,
caresses and cares and warmth
on the fireplace’s edge
now that some first snowflakes
fall on dark fields.
The trail of dreams
winds far afield,
overstepping horizons,
inscribed lawns by the wind
and suns in winter dawns,
spring promises
and autumn perfumes.
Hollows ghost are vanishing
between burned woods;
so far, between the shining
gold of flutes
evanescent in the breeze,
the sound of the bell
of the nigh childhood,
so distant;
watch over the pure heart
until a new awakening.

The wind sings
running over years,
children’s laughs
high notes of guitar
and pure skies to drink.
Seesaws over time
and playing clouds
inset in a light shower,
sleepy chestnut’s branches;
falling on the brown door
November leaves are opening.

to be continued