Can Someone Translate This Poem For Me?

The Sunday Scribblings prompt is "Regrets".

A long while ago, in preparation for a summer to be spent in Trieste, I audited a class in Italian. Actually I audited two semesters of it and felt that I was becoming at least slightly fluent in that language which resembled the Portuguese with which I was familiar. My teacher (a grad student) came to class one day looking downhearted. Each of her fellow Italian instructors (all grad students) had bragged to her that at least one student in each of their classes had brought to them an original poem in Italian. But no one had ever written one for her. As she let us know.

A short time before that, I had entered a local competition to design a mural for the front of The Nature Company. My design of frolicking forest animals won first prize. It wasn't the honor of winning that had encouraged me to enter. Rather, it was that the first prize was a fantastic kite with a revolutionary design. It was worth $125 (probably double that in today's dollars). When I went to collect it and the prize awarders saw my gray hair (not quite white yet), they offered to give me, instead, a pair of binoculars. I refused indignantly. I had won that kite, and that kite was the only thing I would accept as prize.

I wrote a poem in Italian and took to my instructor. It is based on our experiences with the above-cited kite. Here it is - the only poem I ever wrote in Italian:

Noi due fuori con il nostro cane
Nel sole e venti della primavera,
Farfalladi carta nelle nostra mani
Cielo pui chiano di quel che non mai era.

Venti vivaci tiravano il filo.
Ci sentivano giovni e belli.
Ridente, corremos miglio dopd miglio:
Spaventammo conigli ed uccelli.

Con ansia le persone hanno visto
Le nostre rughe, i grigi capelli,
Con le piroette uno strano misto.
Come potrebbero belli?

Non importava a noi poverini,
Non avavamo con noi nullo specchio.
Il cane ci percepiva bambini
Anche il nostro cane era vecchio.

My instructor was not only pleased, she bragged to everyone in sight the one of HER students had written a poem for her.

I had learned enough Italian to not only survive that summer in Trieste, but to carry on reasonably complex conversations with the other attendees at the conference in which Otto was taking part.

What, then, are my regrets? The more important one is that I let my knowledge of Italian lapse until all of it has trickled out. I can excuse it, since at that time I was translating Jorge de Sena's Portuguese poems, and concentration on one language seemed to drive the other out. But my Italian is gone! My title is NOT rhetorical. What does my poem say? I know it's about flying a kite. But what do the individual words mean?

The second regret is that I have lost that beautiful kite. Where could it be hiding among the multitude of objects in this large house?

Spring is here!

cherry blossoms in neighbor's yard

It's official! This is the first full day of spring! Actually it arrived yesterday when we weren't looking, just sort of sneaked in last evening. But these flowers were already blooming in my neighbors' gardens when I walked a few houses down the street from our house, camera in hand.

blue primrose

yellow primrose

golden primrose

pink and white primula

This must have been several small plants
clumped together and planted. ???

I always think that whatever season is current is my favorite season. Spring is special, though, because it is the season of JOY. I don't mean simple happiness, but that rare flash of radiant emotion that makes one want to sing, shout and dance, kick up one's heels like the gamboling lambs and calves on the green hills.

This following poem I pull from my files every spring, and I have posted it once - last April, I think. I was in that that rare joyous state when I wrote it several years ago.

SPRING IS
Spring is not allegory. It is weighed
in density of sound from drunken bees,
intensity of sky, contrast of shade
and glinting leaf, the whisper brush of breeze
against my sleeveless skin; and it is seen
in swooping jay’s blue stitchery that sews
pure cherry blossom white to tender green.
Spring is the sun-baked boards beneath bare toes,
strawberries tart on tongue, the first warm night
that lilac scent, as thick as honey pours
through opened windows, moths around the light
and filmy dust of pollen on the floors.
Don’t try to find a meaning or define,
For spring is real
and here
and now
and mine!

Have a happy springtime in whatever manner you celebrate it!

Silly Poem (written Friday, revised today)

BURNING QUESTION

An intelligent design?
While I guess the notion’s fine
there is something I find sadly out of whack.
What deity would settle
for an itch as sharp as nettle
in the middle, very middle of my back?

As I grapple past my shoulder
I suspect I’m growing older
for my stretching nails seem to have lost the knack
of reaching to the itching,
helpless fingers clutching, twitching
for the middle, very middle, of my back.

A contortionist I’m not
as I bend to reach the spot,
inching upward from my waist. But still I lack
arms long enough for scratching,
stretched too far, almost detaching
as they’re grasping for the middle of my back.

Anthropologists are fools
when they look for man’s first tools
made of stone to cut or grind or slice or hack.
My hunch is man’s first tool was stick,
with a bark both rough and thick,
that could reach the very middle of the back.

Phyllis Sterling Smith September 14 and 21, 2007

Mayday!

Mayday and International Labor Day:

Summer arrived in earnest the last two days, although it's cooler today. Otto and I took advantage of the hot weather to eat lunch in the outdoor patio of a favorite Italian cafe across from the Monterey Market, Berkeley's favorite fresh produce store. It's one of my favorite places for people-watching. The flirting couple and Papa doing baby-sitter duty while working on his laptop, with a latte to earn him table rights, were among my favorites this time. That luscious platter of pannini (enough for two people) was another attraction!

When I was young - for that matter, when my children were young - Mayday was the occasion for hanging anonymous posies on front doors, ringing the doorbell and running like mad. It's a custom I wouldn't mind reviving! We certainly have the flowers for it on this date.

Our wisteria, which covers a trellis that raises it above the tile roof over the dining room, entry, and garage, reached the height of its bloom earlier. I decided (a little late last week) to take pictures of it after it had leafed out and the blossoms had faded somewhat. The fragrance lingers.



MAY DAY

From maypole, festive ribbons fluttered peach,
lavender, pink, mint green and baby blue.
In thought we girls rehearsed our steps to reach
the intricate patterns final weave, each hue
crisscrossed with every other. Our pale bare feet
curled in the cut green lawn. We were too small;
Our turn at last, the ribbons wouldn’t meet
(one high, one low), nor could our teacher’s call
prevent collisions, pull our tangles free.
Reversing, bumping, blushing, we were through.

The threads of history weave imperfectly.
May first, and on our T.V. screens we view
parades of thwarted workers whose spring-bright dreams
have tangled in a web of others’ greed.
A world away a smoky ribbon streams
from a wounded plane. Its cry of urgent need
is ours, who, stumbling, fumble to unbraid a
knotted world where we’ve enmeshed us:

Mayday!
Mayday!