A real traveler doesn’t obey to time, because he doesn’t have a story
Giuliana Donzello, an eminent poet from Italy, shares her poetry
GIULIANA DONZELLO was born in Venice, where she graduated in literature and later completed her specialization at the University of Florence. Since very beginning of the career, she has combined in her work her activity as a lecturer and researcher, collaborating whit the Department of History and Criticism of Contemporary Art at the University of Venice and with the Visual Arts of the Venice Biennale.
She has written and published several essays on art. Since 2008, she has devoted herself to fiction and poetry and has been the winner of major awards, including the international Literary Prize Dickens Book, the “Salvatore Quasimodo” Prize, the international Literary Prize “Maria Cumani Quasimodo, and the Astrolabio Prize”, the “Margherita Hack 2023”, the “Jacopo Da Ponte 2024” Prize; “Arte Biennale”, Prize, Venezia 2024. Many of her texts are included in anthologies, magazines and dictionaries of contemporary writers and poets contemporanei (La stagione delle cicale”, “Fiori di sale”, “Il tre periodico”, “L’Ostatismo ultima impronta del Novecento”, “L’accusa del tempo”, “Chrysalises” and “Topografie di memorie”).
THE WANDERER
Let those who have turned their hearts
To blue distant valleys continue their journey;
The restless path gives them pleasure
Exalting and mastering their mind:
A migrant never rests.
Human sounds don’t reach his ears and brains;
Grown in the long, silent sequence
Of a story written by his quiet footsteps,
A gentle smile in his face and
A strong, tenacious arm and heart
Faithful to a straw mattress,
Scanty but quiet and peaceful.
Poet in love both with the dim twilight
And the rosy dawn
In the golden radiance of a first ray
Enfolding the lonely pool,
He lets emotions flow
In circles of light, vivid dreams
On the horizons of the night
To the sound of dusky footsteps.
He never stops his journey.
A real traveler doesn’t obey to time,
Because he doesn’t have a story.
***
CHRYSALISES
I° S e c t i o n
And what will dawn
Will mark of novelty
Every day of the new Man.
(From “Farewell”)
***
THE POET ’S WORDS
Sweet melodies of verses
Imprisoned in the dungeons
Of the heart.
Voices unheard,
Insults,
Mute mouths
In the immortal days
Of a clattering
Innocent
Green time.
Past days,
Dripped
Like honey
In the precious bowl
Of existence.
Between grassy river sides
And golden light,
In a late morning
Finally released,
Pale flowers
Ready to blossom
When to the tired eyes
Heavy of sleep,
Life frets and runs away.
***
YOUNG AGE
(To Marino)
Something had induced me to return,
The old shores,
The scent of dips
In the memory of a restaurant that no longer exists;
A lullaby carried away by the wind.
i was searching for our years, made of
Innocence and suffering.
The city of water, pensive and silent,
Watched us playing in corners where
The old still lived, and the strangers
Came back to keep on dreaming.
What pushed me to return
Was the desire to kick again
A last tongue of sea; waves submerging
Our castles in a green embrace.
Souls flying in a light whirl,
Sailing ships carried forward in the reflection
Of tenuous shadows swallowed by water.
We dreamed of the sea, the green shades
Of its horizon cuddling us,
Spurning us, and taking our age,
Totally encompassing bodies in the sun,
Spits of salt, shells and sadness.
II° S e ct i o n
There, where you will be,
You will breathe me as a tangible presence
(From “Distance”)
_________________
