Come, Come to Me Now That I'm Old, Not Love

Come, come to me now that I’m old, not love                                                                                                                                   but you, love’s shadow, dust of mute, humble things,                                                                                                               views of roofs, roads, shutters ajar where lovers                                                                                                                              spy their love coming, of convalescing windows,                                                                                                                            and weak progressions of sorrowful days,                                                                                                                                         and umbrous peace that vanishes                                                                                                                                                         the way a duck shot in flight vanishes                                                                                                                                                 into the marsh and drowns and a few feathers                                                                                                                               float in the air: I’m reality here                                                                                                                                                             that wavers hopelessly if you don’t come, my love,                                                                                                                    love’s shadow, o dear sleep, to give me rest.

© Carlo Betocchi

Carlo Betocchi was born in Turin in 1899 and moved to Florence as a child. Apart from the hermetics and post-war experimentalisms of his time, Betocchi developed his own scabrous and religious voice and with Piero Bargellini he founded the Catholic-oriented magazine Il Frontespizio. Betocchi is the author of several poetry collections including L’Estate di San Martino (Summer of Saint Martino), Un Passo un altro passo (A Step, Another Step), Prime e Ultimissime (First and Last Ones), and Poesie del Sabato (Sabbath Poems). His collected works, Tutte Le Poesie, was published in 1984. Betocchi died in Bordighera in 1986 and he is considered to be one of the major Italian poets of the twentieth century.

Translator Ned Condini, writer, translator, and literary critic, was the recipient of the PEN/Poggioli Award for his versions of poet Mario Luzi and of the Bordighera Prize for his rendering of Jane Tassi’s AndSongsongsonglessness (Boca Raton, Florida, 2002). His short stories and poems have appeared in Translation, New York, Mississippi Review, Prairie Schooner, The Partisan Review, Mid-American Review, Negative Capability, Italian Americana, Chelsea, Yip Review, Village Voice, and the Litchfield Review. Condini is the authorized translator of Betocchi’s poetic works, Garzanti, Milan, Italy, which was published by Chelsea Editions in 2008.