“Soul, let’s go. Don’t be discouraged
by the cold. And don’t look at the lake,
if it makes you think of a livid,
teeming wound. Yes, the clouds
weigh over the pines and darken them.
But we will go where the tangle
of branches is so dense, that the rain
doesn’t reach to dampen the ground: soft,
drumming on the dark vault,
it will accompany our journey.
And we will tread on the soft layer
of fallen needles and the curly patches
of lichen, and bilberry; we’ll stumble
over the roots, desperate limbs
groping the earth; we’ll lean tight
against the trunks for support;
and we’ll escape. With the full force
of the flesh and the heart, we’ll flee:
far from this poisonous world
that attracts and repels me. And you will be,
in the pine forest, at night, the leaning shadow
that watches over: and I for you only,
on the sweet way aimlessly,
a soul clinging to love.”
Antonia Pozzi, “Flight,” trans. from Italian by Amy Newman, River Styx (no. 100, May 2018)