NATURE AND THE SEASONS
Nature and the seasons have always been present in
my daily life. Be it in Italy or here in Melbourne,
Victoria. Nature and the seasons proceed together.
There are four seasons and, generally, vegetation grows
according to the season in which we all are. Even the
activities of our society are in line with the passing of
the seasons in each year. All our conditioning as
citizens of the country in which we live is developed
around this reality of nature.
But the seasons also represent for everyone the
chronological events of life. Spring is the beginning of
life, when everything begins to live, grow and flourish.
Summer is when people, living things become adult,
take their shape and way of being. Autumn represents
the harvest of our experiences and of our labours, when
we arrive to have and enjoy the many fruits of our
growth and life as adults. Finally Winter comes and the
trees lose their leaves, the fruits have been gathered, the
weather is more grey, nature gives itself a period of
rest… and sleeps. For humans this period is the last
stage of each year and of life itself, when the final
moment takes us away.
The poems that have fallen in this poetical chest are
the ones about nature, the ones about a particular type
of flower dear to me,that is the Rose, and finally on the
four seasons. I conclude this chapter of the second
volume of Poetry My Friend with two poems on the
damage to our life as human beings and to nature. We
are directly responsible for polluting our planet, while El
Nino is the effect of a particular phenomenon that exists
over the lands that are surrounded by the Pacific
Ocean... which is not always peaceful!
I am sure that I will find or I will write other poems
about this theme of nature and of the seasons... it’s a
theme for all time and for all of us. I hope that people
who live near the tropics and the polar regions will be
able to enjoy these ‘mediterranean’ poems … I hope so!
My seasons
I have cheered up
in the light of past days
in the middle of the din
of a Spring storm.
I have dived into the salt
water of a sea in Summer
when the sun with its rays
dominated the earth.
And I have tasted the Autumn fruit
hung from those trees with foliage
amidst the fresh smell of the leaves
in the dim light of an orchard.
Now I throw myself into the fresh snow
just fallen from the sky in this Winter
full of memories and of fantasy
in the warmth of my third age.
Every season has brought
its gifts, its smell,
its taste.
Seasons of Love
Oh my youthful dreams, so twisted and vain,
when attracted by the first faint wind
of Spring, so cold and thoughtless,
so inhuman in front of looks
in Love!
Inconscient dreams, like iron gloves
that slap the tired cheeks,
you are the ones who awaken the ardour,
that make us desperate
for Love!
Then joy turns upside down desperation,
it leaves on the ground the days of Winter,
it invites the warmth of Summer, in the light
of midday, when everything reveals
the beauty of living,
with Love!
When the gathering of a harmonious life arrives,
the altogether of the whole of the existence
of memories returns, to make us happy!
And it is so that we can savour the fruits
of Love!
The Four Seasons
I like all the seasons because each one of them gives us
something different and important.
Summer
Summer arrives like the culmination of a dream, of a
positive goal of our life. Everything is easy in the
Summers that behave well because even they,
sometimes, are capable of overdoing it and bring harm
and tragedies. In general we think of Summer with
affection and love because it is a period of holidays, of
festivities, of relaxation. When Summer arrives it’s as if
the most beautiful period of the year has arrived.
Summer is the culmination of many things, it is the adult
period of nature, that time of heat and of life, of long
days, of nights full of social life. All of nature is awake
and alive, the sea is particularly attractive, as are all of
the environments: mountains and hills, alpine and city
places, rivers and lakes, plains and countryside.
Autumn
Autumn brings us the fullness of so many fruits which
have arrived, ready to be gathered. Human life also
has these autumnal characteristics. After having lived as
adults to affirm ourselves in society, to have our things,
our very own family. This is the culminating moment of
our energy and of our activity. We have already
reached the beginnings of the third age, when we have
arrived at the height of what we can do.
Winter
Nature prepares to relax. We, human beings, begin to
retire in our own, to relax. We have had enough of a
year that has passed, of a life that has been lived. This
is the evening, the night, the Winter period when
everything is quiet and rests. Sometimes it’s also the
end. But it’s an end that is also fleeting because it
returns…
Spring
… and the cycle of another year, of another life. Human
beings know that after every cycle of life and death, the
will to continue raises its head again, to the reemergence of new experiences and new sensations
which the four seasons bring to us each year and in our
life.
Frosty Reality
The jewel frost in the morning’s glory sun
seems like a meadow of diamonds
scattered over the green of oncoming Spring.
A certain coolness, a strange sorrow
is overcoming the struggle to existence.
Unusually clear the day goes by slowly
as if eternity, for once, wishes to
imprint on this heart of mine
an awakening feeling of reality of truth.
Man is all the day represents:
a sensitive animal that rejoices with nature,
with the preen of the day.
No one is indifferent to the strange happiness
of the bush,
to the quiet peace found in the country
on such clear days. In the wilderness
of the city, a little bird is heard singing,
bitter melancholy pervades the air
that is so poignant with life.
The old dream of nature is dead:
there remains only the rattling life
of civilisation.
Spring
We see Spring in the air
appearing differently each year
amidst the grey of the atmosphere.
She emerges, awakes, dresses up
with vibrant, festive colours
and runs everywhere in the city...
She brings here her smile,
there her magic mantle.
She renews life to one and all.
She says unashamedly: “I’m beautiful”.
I bring you so many flowers, my green.
I allow love to be born again in you.
Fragile is her beauty.
Enjoy its fresh appeal
whilst it lasts...Wake up!
It’s Spring
Here comes the damsel
singing near the brook,
dressed festively
adorned with violets and primroses.
Now she is like a gracious ballerina
who dances lightly
on the green meadows of the earth.
With her magic touch
she invites everyone to her feast:
white and yellow daisies,
cherry trees tinted with pink petals,
sparrows and chaffinches,
coloured butterflies,
without counting all the insects.
It’s Spring.
Let’s form ourselves in a chorus
to celebrate the beautiful season.
Smell of Spring
The heat of the sun
that touches my face
makes me remember
her warm embrace.
The cold wet rain
and the deep grey of the sky
will make me remember always
her sad goodbye.
Do you remember when we spoke
of your poems of love,
of hot kisses and sad departures,
of deep sentiments
and so many changes?
You had love
and gave it to me.
And I left you…
and another arrived.
It was all a going and coming!
They were the first days
of Spring
and you, flowers, gave away
your scent!
Again, Spring
It’s again Spring.
You see and feel her
when you are walking in the park,
or in the countryside, at the beach,
or on the streets of the city.
It begins to colour the environment
with its buds of flowers,
of fruit trees,
with its bushes all shaking
in the fresh breeze that passes through
your skin and refreshes you.
And the bees begin their work.
The birds sing or shout
amidst the covers of the trees.
The insects begin to irritate.
The grass is tender and lucid,
the sky takes on another aspect,
more clear, more alive, more visible,
amidst the sun that shines and the white clouds,
the wind that is running, the rain that is falling,
at times the tempest, the hail and the storm.
A mixture of events a little crazy,
like a young immature person growing up,
between a scolding and a laugh,
between difficulties and happiness,
between the bad and the good…
in those days full of activities,
of so much energy among friends,
or so much reflection when alone.
It’s Spring: the beginning of new life!
Katie and David
There is Katie who is giving
the small pasta dinner
to David, her little one,
who is only five months old!
Where? Under the shadow of a marine
tree, on the small mound of sand.
And the people are enjoying the summer
nature whilst the sun whitens the blue sky
and the clouds. Scattered here and there, they
are making shadows to the sky up there.
Here are the seagulls which are coming
near the smell of the little one’s dinner,
always greedy and ready for a morsel,
to catch that little piece
even from the mouth of a baby!
Every being has its nature,
and nature provides for everyone…
whilst David is eating the pastina
under that marine tree,
which gives shade this morning
when mother provides
under the sun for her baby.
Rest
Waves crash
one by one
on a suburb’s
rocky coastline.
The scorching sun
drowns everything:
swallowing its rays avidly
are the people on the burning sand.
Rich are the humans
for they’re enjoying
a beautiful summer’s day.
Seabirds hover happily
over the resting crowd.
Minutes go by, as do the hours
for the child who’s happily diving
in the marine lake which he has created.
An old woman is also happy.
Solitude is not her lot:
she is under the sun
with all the people
and, whilst thinking of herself
as the little girl she knew,
she smiles at the future
once again.
Leave her in Freedom!
Amongst the green of the meadows,
in the summer of my youth,
in my native town, in Montemurro,
I always liked
the flying of the butterflies.
I remember vividly a morning in July
when a white butterfly stopped
on the the blackberry bush near the road.
An immense desire captured my innocent
soul to make mine that butterfly.
She flew up and down, leaf to leaf,
avoiding the bush’s thorns
with so much lightness, with delicacy.
And I circled that bush
hoping to imprison her, to make her mine.
I wanted to ask her the secret of her flying
and of her delicate abandonment in the fresh air.
She appeared to me like a messenger
that from leaf to leaf,
that from flower to flower,
she brings in an ephemeral
way the message of joy.
I pricked myself when I tried
to take her in my hand.
I Refresh Myself
Under the fresh boughs
with a fresh bough
I refresh myself.
Autumn leaves
In the Autumn air
I see the leaves
fall lightly
on the grass already wet
with drops from the sky.
You can see them in groups,
rustling over the extended meadows
of the city.
They get up, chase,
caress one another
and then, tired,
they gather around
the trunk of a defoliating elm tree.
And there, the leaves,
pushed by the wind,
try in vain
to return upwards,
to rejoin the branches,
up there, again...
The jarring of time
gathers even
the young leaves which
soon pale, become ashen
like leaves
benumbed by the cold.
The passersby crush them
indiscriminately
with different soles
whilst looking
upwards into the sky
at the bare
rigid branches.
And it is into the sky
that I direct my pupils,
my eyes, and fly...
whilst the Autumn leaves
fall, kissing the atoms
of the air, like an artist who
touches his hands to his lips
murmuring “thanks”
to the public as a sign of love.
And then the remaining leaves
fall suddenly
and stop over the meadows
full of tears.
But the wind gathers them up quickly
and takes them in a crazy walk
in unknown streets, in the grey morning.
And it is in a dream
that I see them all
in a chorus, faded,
in a continuous uproar
that rises from my poet’s heart
in a mysterious crescendo.
I remember the sweet smiles
of lovers under the trees,
the free flying birds in the air,
and that lost in vain dream
of leaves ravished by Autumn.
The Lemons
My wife
took care of
the lemons.
She gathered them
all in one scoop
at the beginning of October.
I gather them, lemons,
a few at a time.
They keep me company.
And we are already in
November and the lemon
trees have flowered again: they
are full of other green lemons.
And the plants are all perfumed.
The lemon trees need to be made
bare if they must again
dress up gloriously.
Sparrows
It’s a quiet morning.
The sky is grey and
the birds are festive
on this Winter’s day.
The peach tree is only
a shadow of its former self:-
a dead remainder
from its past Autumn glory.
Then this tree had
leaves, peaches, cover...
a welcome relief
for the occasional visitor...
who shared a cup of tea,
conversation, laughter with me.
Now the bare branches
disclaim life itself except
to give to those sparrows
in search of food and warmth
a resting place,
a few moments of calm,
a peaceful interlude.
These busy little sparrows
scattered over the gutter
and the bare branches
are eating bread...
bread put there
by my sometimes frustrating
children, whose show of kindness
rekindles in me the warmth
which a good deed brings.
Soon I will prune down
these branches. Out of necessity
I will perform this surgery.
But in the meantime
over the next few weeks
I will sometimes sit here
by the window sill
and again, these sparrows
will make me rejoice
in my shelter, in my family
whilst we both await for Spring.
Wind and Solitude
The wind blows mercilessly against
the window panes of my room -
a gust, with its violent passion,
thunders outside, in the street,
and shakes the leaves of my lemon tree.
Nature, in its totality, is unmoved.
But all its limbs shake with cold:
they tremble and fear the gusty wind.
Solitude, shaking like a leaf,
creeps through the bones of this human body.
But solitude is only a state of mind.
And the mind, like a gigantic oak tree,
overpowers the feeble human body
that shakes its flesh when nature’s
wind cares moving about for a blow.
The Cycle
Solitary road
under a dark sky
you look at the shadows
of an Autumn night.
The leaves fall quickly,
rigidly the branches extend
into eternity.
Only a leaf
continues to flutter,
but after a while it too
falls.
A passing ray of sunshine
caresses the yellow leaves
on the damp footpath,
whilst the wind
gathers them in a basket
and deposits them under a cypress
near the leaves
of other Summers.
Cold is the heart
of the crying tree:
it has lost its leaves,
it has lost its family.
The sad tree remembers Spring
and alone weeps for its fate
and the vanished Summer.
Then in the cold Winter
it sleeps in a deep sleep
with dreams of lost happiness.
In the grey misty sky
a dove.
Then a swallow.
Finally Spring.
Joy.
THE ROSES
There is something very special about roses. This is the
patrician amongst a great number of flowers. Roses come in
many colours, have a variety of textures, can be large and
small in size and, above all, they attract by their pleasant
fragrance.
A rose garden gives you a heightened experience of beauty.
However... you have to be careful... the rose bush is
dangerous for our human skin and flesh. Roses come at the
end of branches full of thorns. You can hurt yourself slightly
or severely. A rose almost objects to being picked or plucked
and yet its tenure of life is as momentary as life itself.
From a small compact cocooned bud springs a radiant
colourful, perfumed flower. A bunch of these roses are a rare
prize to be given on the most auspicious occasions.
As it matures, a rose loses all of its grip: its leaves are shed in
disarray. These almost ask you to use them as you wish. In
fact rose leaves are used at festive times, in perfume making
and even in cooking!
A rose is also a poet's natural ally when a simple analogy
with life is required. This is the reason why, over the years,
the rose has taken pride of place in some of my poems. i.e
"Una Rosa", "Rosamor", "Roseluv", "A lasting fragrance"!
A Bud
A bud gives me so much hope,
its opening up, so much joy
its spread so much pain!
A Rose
That rose
opened up
this morning.
It’s beauty
is in full bloom.
Its attractive
like a film star
at the height of her success.
It’s dazzling
when you see it.
I wanted
those red petals,
its perfection.
How stupid
I was yesterday!
I didn’t take her.
That rose
is already
faded,
finished.
Rose love
It was today. I picked a rose
amongst the many in my garden.
Strange... never have I killed one like this.
In my hand, between my fingers,
I caressed its sweetness,
the delicate petals,
the young tender thorns.
Everything still smiles of the divine
towards a radiant sky
full of swallows in flight.
Eternal beauty in my memories,
apex of earthly happiness,
moment chiselled in time.
I still love you, oh sweet Rose.
Rose luv
Withered is the rose I knew,
gone are the times I lived.
Memories are all that remain
to a heart that knew no bounds.
Love is only an illusion
that fades as time goes on:
deceived are the young in the game,
deceitful are the dreams of the past.
A lasting Fragrance
Whenever I sing a little tune
there, in the shadow, I see the light
of a beholder who’s all sunlight.
Like shadows, like sunlight
everything is passing,
everything is yesterday.
And yesterday, like a plucked rose,
still leaves in my nostrils
that perfect fragrance,
that perfect choice.
I know that even a perfect rose
will in time grow, wither and die.
But I don’t know whether one
should pluck the rose,
whether one should smell
nature’s lovely and perfect creation.
What right has man to smell at all?
Why should he crave for Spring
if nothing is eternal, nothing is true?
Yet we follow a path of roses...
we prick our hands, we smell them with joy.
Then tomorrow comes... it’s only yesterday.
But then I shall remember
that lonely and frightened rose
so delicate, tender and new...
so sweet, so warm, so true...
and nothing shall make me
want more,
nothing will
give me happier moments.
I’ll remember the times when I didn’t
know what to say,
when silence wept a few humble tears,
when silence, with its eternal say,
said all... and nothing left for me to say.
Yes, I remember now, I said something...
what was it? I don’t really know...
I know it was sincere, true.
Then time pricked my hand,
then it was time to go.
NATURE IN THE CITY
There are many instances when we take notice of the
effect of nature on man made surroundings.
In "Foglie Autunnali" we are especially aware of the
falling leaves. When they fall, how they fall, what
happens once they reach the ground. How do the
leaves themselves appear to react and how do we, as
humans, stand back as observers. Of course, there are
always people who do not seem to take much notice,
since they are too busy; people who look on this event
with indifference; people who can even make poetry out
of it!
Just like in "Una doccia in città" when, after a long, dry
spell, a shower comes to break the monotony of life. This
event brings with it a change of mood, for both the city
and the people who live in it. After this short, dry spell,
the all powerful sun returns to reign supreme once again.
A shower in the City
A city taking a shower
after a long suntan
is proud in its new robe.
Trickles running on footpaths,
drops disintegrating on tram-lines,
people breathing the cool air,
a little boy, his mouth open,
with his tongue catches the raindrops.
Nature’s miracle passes.
The city brightens again
under the piercing rays
of the celestial eternal power.
Multicoloured butterfly
Amidst the din of the traffic
and the confusion of the passersby,
the other day
I saw in the city
attached
to a luxury shop window
a multicoloured butterfly.
POLLUTION
The issue of individual and collective responsibility for our environment
is more topical today than it was twenty years ago when I wrote this
poem.
From 1971 to 1991 the problems of “pollution” have increased
dramatically. We have witnessed an escalation of our inability to
contain those activities which have damaged and are damaging our
natural “environment”.
“L’inquinamento” is essentially a pessimistic poem. It offers no
solutions. Nor can there be when reality tells us that we are unable
to rise above ourselves. Or, at least, that’s the opinion of the soul of
a young man who picks the chords of his guitar, whilst remembering
the world as it was before it blew up.
Even though many of the images which I describe in this poem which
I wrote in 1971 ie stagnating rivers, birds and fish in oil spills,
endangered species have flashed onto our television screens, I feel
somewhat different today. I have become more of an optimist. I
believe that not only we can but we must assume the responsibility of
becoming caretakers of our planet.
Our living creatures need to be protected in their environments. The
type of civilizations which we have are possible in a sustainable
ecological reality. We need to achieve a balance between our needs
and that of nature. We need to learn to mend our mistakes. The world
has the ability to renew itself - so there is room for making some
mistakes...as long as these are not so great...
Written 1991
...And this “issue” does not go away... for today Sunday 2nd of
March 2008... We are gathered here to see what is happening at the
Federal, State and Local levels of Government in favour of “The
Environment and Climate Change.”
Addition 2nd March, 2008
Pollution
(i)
Ten one hundred years have passed
from the time when God forced me
to be in the company of eternity.
When I now think of earthly things
I become nostalgic about life
which has lost all its youth.
Now Earth is no more
the seas have all gone.
There is only this afflicted musician
who picks the chords of his guitar.
(ii)
The grass of the green meadows dries up,
the water of the dying rivers is stagnating,
dirty is the shore under the beach umbrellas.
A fish comes up for a mouthful of air
but finds only a chemical salad
that private inertia has poisoned.
A seagull sits on the waves
that stink of petrol and dead fish.
The world has stopped with a swoon
that is a result of the surrounding stench.
(iii)
A little bird sick with fever
loses its plumage and also its hope.
There is no longer the limpid spring,
the murmuring river, the resplendent lake.
There is only a mist that fills the temples
of the tired thinking animal,
who cries over his foolishness
remembering those passed days
when he was awakened by the swallows
in the Springs of bygone days.
(iv)
Silently a brook putrefies
under a branch deprived of leaves
and shouts with a mute voice,
at the inhuman end of its lost gaiety.
A fragile boat languidly weeps
the days, alas!, already gone forever
of the genuine happiness of lovers
at the blossoming of nature.
There is no more the voice of love
that rocks the waves of its heart.
(v)
Dead are all the people
who caused the world to stink!
Rotten are the lost souls
in lakes covered with excrement.
A torpour invades the air of once
in forests skeletoned by people.
Disappeared are the terrestrial beasts
from the cycle of life on Earth.
The infinite is dead, the skies have disappeared,
the stars are so dark in the night.
(vi)
The great Scythe1 no longer severs
over the vast sea of youth.
God has told me that she is dead and buried
under the ocean that is no longer there.
The old swagger invokes her no more for it is
one thousand years that she hasn’t been seen.
One does no longer war, no longer fight,
no longer live, no longer love
in the world that once was so famous
doing these and a thousand other things.
(vii)
Unfolded now in the infinite are the souls
of the gloomy race of cowardice.
Desperate under a sombre mantle
they strike each other frenziedly
for not having punished in time laziness
that has made a massacre of civilization.
They think of the time of reality
when they used to say to each other
I don’t care if the closed in animal is becoming
mad and does not know where to go.”
(viii)
Let’s get rid of the boresome flies;
away, away with the poisonous snake!
Let’s make a soup with the sad dove
while the canary is put into prison.
One goes to the lake to fish for rabbits
which are no longer to be seen around.
A little at a time all these small animals
disappear from sight without escape
while man who can no longer hunt
blasphemes his damned avarice.
(ix)
On the clear current of the river
of the white capped mountains, no longer
runs the smell of the jovial Winter freshness
for the little bird has stopped singing.
The day, the night, and the seasons
are no longer there, poor creatures,
for the hours have stopped in eternity
with the weather that has stopped changing.
Now the vanished humanity remembers only the
beautiful things that rich and poor enjoyed without care.
(x)
There is an illusion there in the dark sky
of a man, whose smile without compare,
sees the coming of the end of humanity
forced to no longer laugh and play.
The writers of my youth weep over
the hours of contempt because
their works are no longer needed
in a country where they no longer read.
The Earth in fact has suffered a storm
before blowing out of the window.
El Nino
This Boy Child with a Spanish name,
El Nino they call him far and wide,
brings in headlines like a superstar
when it leaves its shores with ill intent.
Is he a friend or is he a foe?
Why is nature afraid of this little child
who wants to roam the ocean,
fly with the wind, cry with the rain?
All creatures great and small wonder
if next year El Nino will arrive!
Will he again cause havoc and turmoil?
Why does he have to come at all?
This bad boy who lives in the Pacific
wakes up regularly from his deep sleep
and rides the waves, shifts the currents,
rules the air, unplugs our ecosystems!
He whips up tempests, storms and hurricanes,
overturns ships and boats, uproots trees and harvests,
pokes his tongue at humanity with pranks
and rebel ways like a naughty, ugly adolescent.
But our El Nino can’t concentrate for long,
he suddenly stops his destruction and moves on!
Bewildered is whoever he visited, relieved amidst
the sunshine in the peace of a fresh new day!
Written 1997