San Michele [English translation]

You don’t know who I am for I have been away for long

My tears dοn't mean anything to you

So recite to me what happened here

to hopefully gather once again the threads

Tell me those stories of yours

that make the reeds bend

at the edge of the fields and that, amid lull,

cool the farmers’ foreheads.

Tell me those stories of yours.

Show me pictures of these who were born on Sunday

and of those who have fallen out of the boat

just before it reaches the shore

because they don’t’ like their life anymore.

Tell me the songs you sing at dawn

when the lights in the square go out

as well as in the afternoons after the praying

and before hanging around starts.

Tell me the songs you sing at dawn

Τell me if people keep on sitting on their heels

while looking at the fire

and if the most beautiful women in the village

secretly breed eels under their tongues .

Tell me if the wolf of death still comes

to the margins of the village in winters

and, while waving its tail, the milk coagulated

inside the frightened breasts of the new mothers.

Tell me if he wolf still comes to the margins of the village

Tell me if the bathtub - in which once

I used to bathe by sun and by snow- was found

or the lock of hair that was kept from my first haircut by my mother

who still puts out the washing to dry.

Bakunin’s spittoon, the cast one,

comrades, has it been found too?

so that I can spit inside with rage

for the new era makes me look like a cretin

You don’t know who I am for I have been away for long