Perhaps One Morning Walking

 by Eugenio Montale

(Forse un mattino andando in un’aria di vetro)

Perhaps one morning walking in dry glassy air,

I will turn, I will see the miracle complete:

nothingness at my shoulder, the void behind

me, with a drunkard’s terror.

Then, as on a screen, trees houses hills

will advance swiftly in familiar illusion,

But it will be too late; and I will return, silently,

to men who do not look back, with my secret.

Grace at Imaginary Gardens with Real Toads, has challenged us to use a poem by Eugenio Montale as a model for our own. Among many other accomplishements, he was the 1975 Nobel Prize winner in literature.  The challenge was most interesting and helped me understand why I've never gotten the prize.  The following is mine.  



Perhaps one morning as I walk among desert weeds,
the parting sky will gulp me up
to cosmic gardens never before known by anyone
like me, disolving into blissful colors
fragranced by perfection of a living sea.

Then, I'll be the sky, falling
back to little marble earth becomming big
in my eyes that have seen
what others cannot fathom.

My Grandmother and Andrea

Photo by Dulcinea at Photobucket

"How wonderful that she was born on the 13th.  

What a lucky number that is." my grandmother said,

with certainty of a rock.

She believed in mishmash.  

"The night sky is red tonight.  It's gonna rain." she'd say

proudly, expressing extent of her pseudoscience indisputable.  

I'd try my best to detect red but all I ever saw was

vastness of black covering jumbled web of strange 

beliefs, unproved "facts" my grandmother misconstrued.

She mistrusted any spiritualist who charged money, 

but paid them well when their psychic powers seemed true.

Andrea was her favorite.  

A jovial, chubby lady who seemed normal in every way, except

she had a spooky room in her house where my grandmother went

to get some amulet or special water with a feather or a coin,

a magnet to attract forces of luck, 

transforming random destiny into magical good.

I feared Andrea.  I sensed her aura obscure,

fragments of invisible powers swam within, waiting for activation.

She was confident of this, I could tell, though her demeanor demure.

My grandmother ignored my resistance during my visit one day 

when I least wanted to talk to anyone I didn't like or believe.

But she forced me to the phone, where Andrea said,

"You just lost a baby I'm told. 

Doctors foretell a barren future.

How sad, hopeless you must feel.

But, don't worry child, all will change, 

for as soon as you return home, 

a fertile seed you will grow."

I've thought of her often, but never spoke to Andrea again.  

I heard she moved far away.

Science predicted doom, a childless life for me.

Somehow Andrea knew this was not to be.

A year later, my grandmother, admiring my newborn said,

"How wonderful that she was born on the 13th.  

What a lucky number that is." 

(Submitted to Imaginary Gardens.)


I've written about this before.  Sorry if you've read the same story in different form.  This really happened.  Maybe that's why I retell it so much.

HER SADNESS

Nimbus clouds hover, teasing, as she waits

for drenching, cleansing torrents

to drown pain.

Tears are too minute

to dilute grand disillusions,

to dissolve disappointments,

to disintegrate dreams

that don’t realize

life makes no promises.

It just flows

even over mountains of lost hope.

And it decides if it will rain,

or if there’ll be drought.

So much is out of her control.

But she knows life

won’t allow the clouds to menace forever.

Eventually, they’ll release the rain,

wash a path for the sun.

(Submitted to Imaginary Garden with Real Toads.)