Penury and Fervor, by Alfredo Giuliani <i> (translated by Michael Moore)</i>

This is our penury in fervor;

hidden tears will not lie

in the rain like my notebook’s

black lines, like the tremors I write

with the quill in my bones.

We know the secret sadly explained

by the hero’s life, like seeing the moon

excite a peaceful gash.

Lucky if the night deepens pain

and returns it to the wind simpering

behind the door.

An error’s biography exults, a question

you cannot phrase humble distress.

Each day art ages

and swells the spirit with bladders,

evergreens die in lustral gray,

roads meet us with the pudor of flames.

From “Novissimi: Poetry for the Sixties” edited by Alfredo Giuliani. (Sun & Moon Press: $14.95; 413 pp.) 1995 Reprinted by permission. Alfredo Giuliani was born in Pesaro in 1924 and lives in Rome where he teaches Italian literature.