A real traveler doesn’t obey to time, because he doesn’t have a story

Giuliana Donzello, an eminent poet from Italy, shares her poetry

GIULIANA DONZELLO was born in Venice, where she graduated in literature and later completed her specialization at the University of Florence. Since very beginning of the career, she has combined in her work her activity as a lecturer and researcher, collaborating whit the Department of History and Criticism of Contemporary Art at the University of Venice and with the Visual Arts of the Venice Biennale.

She has written and published several essays on art. Since 2008, she has devoted herself to fiction and poetry and has been the winner of major awards, including the international Literary Prize Dickens Book, the “Salvatore Quasimodo” Prize, the international Literary Prize “Maria Cumani Quasimodo, and the Astrolabio Prize”, the “Margherita Hack 2023”, the “Jacopo Da Ponte 2024” Prize; “Arte Biennale”, Prize, Venezia 2024. Many of her texts are included in anthologies, magazines and dictionaries of contemporary writers and poets contemporanei (La stagione delle cicale”, “Fiori di sale”, “Il tre periodico”, “L’Ostatismo ultima impronta del Novecento”, “L’accusa del tempo”, “Chrysalises” and “Topografie di memorie”).

THE WANDERER

Let those who have turned their hearts

To blue distant valleys continue their journey;

The restless path gives them pleasure

Exalting and mastering their mind:

A migrant never rests.

Human sounds don’t reach his ears and brains;

Grown in the long, silent sequence

Of a story written by his quiet footsteps,

A gentle smile in his face and

A strong, tenacious arm and heart

Faithful to a straw mattress,

Scanty but quiet and peaceful.

Poet in love both with the dim twilight

And the rosy dawn

In the golden radiance of a first ray

Enfolding the lonely pool,

He lets emotions flow

In circles of light, vivid dreams

On the horizons of the night

To the sound of dusky footsteps.

He never stops his journey.

A real traveler doesn’t obey to time,

Because he doesn’t have a story.

***

CHRYSALISES

I° S e c t i o n

And what will dawn

Will mark of novelty

Every day of the new Man.

(From “Farewell”)

***

THE POET ’S WORDS

Sweet melodies of verses

Imprisoned in the dungeons

Of the heart.

Voices unheard,

Insults,

Mute mouths

In the immortal days

Of a clattering

Innocent

Green time.

Past days,

Dripped

Like honey

In the precious bowl

Of existence.

Between grassy river sides

And golden light,

In a late morning

Finally released,

Pale flowers

Ready to blossom

When to the tired eyes

Heavy of sleep,

Life frets and runs away.

***

YOUNG AGE

(To Marino)

Something had induced me to return,

The old shores,

The scent of dips

In the memory of a restaurant that no longer exists;

A lullaby carried away by the wind.

i was searching for our years, made of

Innocence and suffering.

The city of water, pensive and silent,

Watched us playing in corners where

The old still lived, and the strangers

Came back to keep on dreaming.

What pushed me to return

Was the desire to kick again

A last tongue of sea; waves submerging

Our castles in a green embrace.

Souls flying in a light whirl,

Sailing ships carried forward in the reflection

Of tenuous shadows swallowed by water.

We dreamed of the sea, the green shades

Of its horizon cuddling us,

Spurning us, and taking our age,

Totally encompassing bodies in the sun,

Spits of salt, shells and sadness.

II° S e ct i o n

There, where you will be,

You will breathe me as a tangible presence

(From “Distance”)

_________________ 

Published under International Cooperation with "Sindh Courier"