Simon Armitage on August 9, 2014 in Edinburgh, Scotland.

Luca Guerneri traduce e commenta una poesia del poeta inglese Simon Armitage uscita sul quotidiano The Guardian il 21 Marzo 2020.

Lockdown, Simon Armitage

And I couldn’t escape the waking dream
of infected fleas

in the warp and weft of soggy cloth
by the tailor’s hearth

in ye olde Eyam.
Then couldn’t un-see

the Boundary Stone,
that cock-eyed dice with its six dark holes,

thimbles brimming with vinegar wine
purging the plagued coins.

Which brought to mind the sorry story
of Emmott Syddall and Rowland Torre,

star-crossed lovers on either side
of the quarantine line

whose wordless courtship spanned the river
till she came no longer.

But slept again,
and dreamt this time

of the exiled yaksha sending word
to his lost wife on a passing cloud,

a cloud that followed an earthly map
of camel trails and cattle tracks,

streams like necklaces,
fan-tailed peacocks, painted elephants,

embroidered bedspreads
of meadows and hedges,

bamboo forests and snow-hatted peaks,
waterfalls, creeks,

the hieroglyphs of wide-winged cranes
and the glistening lotus flower after rain,

the air
hypnotically see-through, rare,

the journey a ponderous one at times, long and slow
but necessarily so.

Lockdown, Simon Armitage

E fu impossibile sfuggire il sogno in veglia
di pulci infettate

tra la trama e l’ordito della stoffa pregna
accanto al focolare del sarto

nella cara vecchia Eyam.
Poi fu impossibile non vedere

La Pietra di Confine,
un dado sghembo con sei fori bui,

ditali ricolmi di aceto di vino
per purificare le monete appestate. Continua a leggere