By Antonino Mazza
The earth arrives in a village with chestnut eyes
and I can’t help myself if fire pours out of my mouth.
There was a purple road once.
It now returns; wine in my head,
the way the sky spins for the evening sun.
And the volcano again breaks the horizon. But my
Grandfather…the clay pipe in the orange groves
belching mouthsful of laughter.
When I arrived what I’d remembered most died.
But the scent of it flows, invisible through ancient
windows. Inside me, it lingers for love
with longing fingers, the way a muscle smiles for life.
And I can’t help it. The poem filled with heart enough
to cup the bodies of water, to flood all memories
pours out of me, like a bone with a hole in it.
and I can’t help it. Like a dirt road bolting uphill
my life arrives with me, in an orange forest
and unfurls in a blaze of colours.
Reprinted from The Way I Remember It. (Guernica Editions, 1992) with permission from Franceline Quintal (2018).
