Each of us stands alone on a plot of earth
caught in a dying ray of sun -
till day is done.
After Salvatore Quasimodo:
Ognuno sta solo sul cuor della terra
traffito da un raggio di sole:
ed è subito sera.
***
I think I am going to stick with this latest version of a poem I have lived with for over forty years, example nec plus ultra of intranslatibility. In my mind it is also a superb case in point of how images intermingle and breed, since the above quasi-haiku by Salvatore Quasimodo clearly generated my much less succinct lines in Chaparral Sunset.
Day sheds its sheath of light,
the skin of things a wisp,
a wreath, every blade clinging
to the flare once pulsing within.