Friday, October 14, 2011

FIRST RITES

Children.
You sense their smiles when they meet
early in the morning, the same place
in front of your house, rucksacks full of books
heavy on their backs.
Puffs of breath lingering
in the air waving with violet.
You hear their steps first, then you see them
gathering in a circle. They shiver
and get busy at once, eager
with one another, with their
simple appearing, stamping their feet
on a rectangular grey Venetian stone
as if they said -here we are, that’s
the start, that’s our trampoline-.
The air crowding with colours.
Children, first rites.

A last one joins the circle now,
steps in glad, comes to a halt
stamping his feet on the stone, the same stone
with a step that says –it suits me.
The others cheer and pat him on the shoulder
saying -well, let's go.

And you? You can’t but glance, maybe smile,
and linger in your adult silence
and let yourself
be caught by the simple desire
to start all over again
and be one them, starting on a stone
in that continent that is a child’s morning,
being patted on the shoulder and then walking,
cheering and joking, red cheeks
chattering with the universe,
eager steps in the marrow-bone.

3 comments:

Elisabeth said...

A resonant poem, here, Davide. I know this scene well, though I am not so sure I would like to return to my time there, maybe to my children's experience though. They seemed to enjoy these arrivals. I did not.

Dave King said...

See what you meant. Excellent!

Tommaso Gervasutti said...

Thank you Elisabeth and Dave.

Elisabeth, maybe your present and future is more engaging and pleasant to envisage than remembering some memories of your past? I hope so for you.

I, as I wrote in a poem in contrast with the Yeats of "Sailing to Byzantium", would often start everything all over again. The classic Hindu believers would wave me away because I would ask to be perpetually reborn despite the fact that this is often "a valley of tears."