ADRIANO SANSA
HONOURS OF TEARS. In memory of the Sicilian martyrs.
FALCONE AND BORSELLINO POETICALLY COMMEMORATED BY A MAGISTRATE
Adriano Sansa born at Pola in 1940, is a magistrate in Genoa (for the time being
he is the mayor of the same town).
He writes for dailies and weeklies about social subjects: his articles have been
collected in two volumes (LA REPUBBLICA DISEGUALE/THE UNEVEN REPUBLIC
Milano 1981 and LA MEMORIA E LA SPERANZA/MEMORY AND HOPE, Genoa, 1990),
He has published the following collections of poems
- VIGILIA/EVE,
- LA CASA DI SANT'ILARIO/THE HOUSE AT ST ILARIO,
- NOTTI DI GUARDIA/WATCHNIGHTS,
He is associate editor of "RESINE"/"RESINS"
HONOURS OF TEARS.
In memory of the Sicilian martyrs.
CHORUS
Who's brave and valiant tastes of death but once
The coward many times if he submits
To the will of ruler, who in secret
Lives plotting and he suddenly gets, out
Unable really brightness to accept
5
So blinded that his brother he does kill.
GIOVANNI
The ardent air supports my spread out wings
And I fly o'er Palermo in sweetness
Of oranges and Indian figs. meantime
The sun feelings destroys and colours gives
10
A deep background so intense that nearly
The &sure grows dark and vegetation
Precociously assumes a shade of black.
Along the oldest road* tho bloodshed seems
In the veins to flow at a lower speed
15
And the pavements to flood with uniform
Majestic carelessness* The sea meanwhile
Par off stays to penetrate refuses
To cleanse the districts and to open wide
As far as zest of life and real true salt
20
Those downcast thresholds and those flue doorways
Where in the shade does stop stone of the hearts,
Back home this morning: between two churches
Highly crowded with statues and paraments
Gravely wore going on the ambiguous priests
25
The dying and the murderers attending.
But we, being young# along speeded playing
With our blood well closed and dry no one
Did cut our swollen veins, there van Paolo
Who used to seize the ball and lock at me
30
Calm searching for the point where is the game
To be expected winning, I don't mind
If already any man had in his eyes
That feral gleam that worthless makes and vile
And teaches one to perjure much sooner
35
Than does tighten to throttle the taut rope.
This evening we will be alongside the sea
We members of the old squad and the boys
All being deep in the beach to throw, lighted
With the red-hot day which makes red coloured
40
The arms as well the vine on the slight slopes
All the way to the island's heart. Who says
That's but a lightless flesh absolutely
His shut-in heart, his heart too grim, too dark...
PAOLO
So dull a sound was heard out of the eaves
45
Of Mount Pollegrinop at just this time
Already near the feast: sulphur miners
For ages fatally repressed by mines
Detrimental to eyes# noxious to breath
All do wander among us InspIredly,
50
But not that dreadful bang, like a thunder
Of roaring planes in the sky high-broadened
Due to the face of rock at Raisi Peak
Toward my town and off thrown at the world
Deeply the worms have dug inside the rock
55
And have excreted white malign powder
By which deceived we are all: the peasant
In salt mines being dazzled at the season
Of harvest slowly set in proper place
The salt of the earth. Here dim, obscure grove
60
The iris of the eyes for a poison
Mixing red in every point and middles
With your life summer, the religious rites
In the smothered Cathedral, the great pomp
Of the baroque mansions and those curtains
65
Where moves the uncertain deceitful war.
Refined and unrefined. The murderers.
Therefore rest in the shade and in Rome, too.
MANFREDI
Father, on such a day how kind you were
Laying down your hands upon Giovanni
70
Who has lost his body torn to pieces
But with you he kept on talking over
Human beings and flowing time, You did know
To already be with him, though not yet.
Silence, there was huge silence in springtime
75
The lights got longer and you used to stay
Only just glancing and only murmuring
Over the papers on your table till
The sunset set fire to the windows
Of the high bookcase. Evermore it seemed
80
The same house, the one that was flying swiftly
At night in the breath or wind like so many
From Greek isles to the Mediterranean
White shores and then no one else in the world
For brightness of the air after the fire,
85
But a hot awful furious rush of wind
Put an end to his breathing and broke down
Windowpanes and tho door, pressed hearts so closely
As to have then struck down and turned the walls
Red, that inspiring dread Sicilian redo
90
CHORUS
Moves round the Colosseum a long line
Of impeccably polished cars whose curtains
Keep faces of eyeless persons secret.
Hidden remain some beasts and brutes in cells
or dampened stone or among the Christians
95
Who them don't recognize and confused
Prom time to time they do shriek out frightened
Discovering the snare, or else happy
Duo to the green of the field in the middle
Of something there they do acclaim inside
100
They ne'er know what In but longing and thirst
To poise high the voice, In the middle of then
So gathered up that doing and suffering
Would be in throngs pompous grandiose and great
Evil and good# is spreading mixed and Jumbled
105
With that of the steps which lose consistency
Of their amphitheatre an acrid white
Powder up risen by that very whirlpool
Without a break out there up to the signs
Of courses of aeroplanes and now ships
110
With different amphoras where from the oil
Is being lot out for ever. Hands untouched
By the air and by the work are waving
Decisive and ultimate: servants stoop
And go to all people to communicate
115
The evilspel. Besides there is Pilate
In many rooms of bright manor-houses
By far than other men still more guiltless.
However this by then know Giovanni
In' Paoloq from Palermol while both sailing
120
At his own heart unimpaired and hoping
That the blood of the youths could be rescued
From the pals white that in the blood does thaw
Deadly sharp weakness, Byer on evenings
Among the towns motor-cars were running
125
To collect money from those who are dying
And it deliver to the incorrupt hands
From time to time outstained and made again
With stone like the orbit of the faces.
Please, don't come to Palormog don't return
130
To funerals and moans that such a circle
Doesn't shun or avoid and it mars crossing
The streets and aisles just on the occasion
Yells the voice out at the end of the mind
Of the woman whose husband is earthen.
135
Lend your ears: pauses in Rome the silence
Of one hundred thousand In the stadium.
But hither If you come look for the place
Where people laugh and when, and laughs repellant
The murderer to whom are refloated
140
On the panes of window' calm reflections
Of th'exhausted slow Tiber. No one, none
Of past heroes is by water sailing...
BISHOP
I wish I could tell you, in short I say
That notwithstanding all God those forgiven
145
Who fall on their own knees, Before their time
However the hall I bid the sinners
Proud to the end and haughty: yet still whore
I'll find the appropriate words expected
By this down-hearted crowd to which does come
150
Neither a prince nor a chief to utter
Rightost sounds of the message, the only ones
Indispensable and apt to that feeling
Even if burled In the hearts. Where then
I'll talk to you about Rome not to caress
155
Children an once Pope John did and to give
The momentous warning from the balcony
Oter the wellknown piazza, but about Rome
Peeding on delays and still remaining
Notorious for the plots. As well my priests
160
Are sometimes in the villages confined
On border of the cathedral shadow
Not only for the hotness, but at them
I raise my voice and I know who I am
To convert them a short time before dying.
165
Protect the mansions, don't ask God for you
To take most care of the august benches
Of self-governing people, when in many
Endlessly you give in to a holiday
Punctuated with heroes, then with the dead
170
Become witnesses in your stead acting.
I put my trust in God who at his time
The hearts can sure conquers but everyone
Must guard and keep safe the town, you, rulers,
Now got back home, just as soon as being met
175
This full-length sun falling off the horizon
At the Pillars of Hercules, please think
Of kinder and more humane lot, a flash
Entitle it by the name of the brethren
Passed out to the next world. And remember.
180
GIOVANNI
From up here I see that amazing isle
Luxuriant and harsh isle, her volcano
And the ancient temples house-stifled, On the stages
They talk of heroes, but among the crowd
On everyone's lips your name is and mine.
185
Clearly I see large masses and their course
Not hasty forward moves and puts to flight
Rare characters shouldering their long rifles
Who uselessly beseech those very few
Not them to abandon, by degrees slowly
190
They disappear from eight perhaps they go
Seeping into the soil creeping like worms,
There is no sound of bravoes and of threats
Of which disturbed me a bit the buzzing
And hurt the thoughts, I hear on the contrary
195
The voice of the others, the dear friends
Who plan now houses for the coming time
And who dream of peace days, then somebody
Rise& on their behalf and In detail
Gives minute account of those days, that crowd
200
Tells fair honest upright words which have strength
And so obscure, so mysterious a sty le
Consisting of names and maybe faces
Just as we expected then. You remember
Such quiet, peaceful evenings, notwithstanding
205
Arms and barbed-wire fences when together
To each other we would talk on justice
Word become incarnate, about Sicily
The place where we were born, my lovely house...
PAOLO
I like to remind, for this reason still
210
The air I revive I was torn up from
And was populated with my children
I'm waiting and silent, yet understand
What is being plotted in the streets and planned
And that answers a masterpiece of yours,
215
As we were playing we did keep paces
High pleased that evening to be victorious.
After it has come true, we'll be allowed
To forget our matters: and that we willed.
CHORUS
Round the monuments motion starts again
220
And splendid sumptuous fountains where water
Reached and came out at the potentates' call
When in the furrows the green of seed-plants
Grow chalky and dried up and lost all hope
The impotent plowman who at night wandered
225
Exhausted and weary to pay attention
And spy on death fixed in compliance
With those who far were, favoured and shielded
By respectful names and sawn-off shotguns.
Now water flows, but the unknown wrongdoers
230
Whose names the obedient servants low utter
Ask by lifting a finger and control
The flow of the death; in the rich orchards
All round the main town, with productive soil
Which ripens sweet tomatoes on-trickling
235
Heat of the aunt are being built at random
Absurd skyscraper, flat terraced houses
Imposed by bosses an in the middle ages
Small houses and huts encircling the castle
That each was inclined top but each did know,
240
The air and the earth, the bridges and work
Among you without being yours: then subjects
While the knoll of the millennium's tolling
And your brain so grieved in lacking in dream
That sometimes does pretend not to have got,
245
Thou yesterday you saw, Today they are
Upon a tree, in a shriek of terror
Calmed down in the brilliant vivid design
Of your pact, Itself revealed in the face.
Their native lymph, their inborn sap, the calm
250
Which provides thorough knowledge of the death
And a flash of the eyes an for the life
The dead because of all of us doubting
To call the dear land of our ancestors
By its own name, rightless usurped and live,
255
We don't have knowledge of them, as they've had
Interrupted by the abuse their thread
Which only God's allowed, but you hear them
Walk through the gardens and of gardens are made
Coasts of Sicily and you hear them call
260
All friends aside aware and disclosing
How the coming millennium will have but
Memory of the see ed despised powder
Of the mafia's scraps and fragments, unnamed
But as heinous bastards. Sure of them all
265
Paolo Giovanni Carlo Alberto Antonio
In memory among us, to give life
All that does allow those who still remain
The stiff and grave shade. To call to witness
In our sight, in every place, at night.
270
(translated by Benito POGGIO, 1995)