You traced this simple gesture with your hand:
you raised it to your face,
you stretched it towards my window,
while I was driving: I looked,
and against the hazy morning
light I counted them:
eight, eight mulberries with outspread branches
like the tail of a stuffed peacock,
a procession along the line
of our gaze, so perfect
that for a moment I forgot
timetables and connections
and I slowed down to comprehend
how one can say of eight trees in a row
‘look, how beautiful!’, as you said,
if they have not decided to be that way,
and everything’s
just a chain of senseless alternation,
or whether a gesture of the hand and a
smile
are enough to make, out of eight trees
in a row, an illusion of redemption.
By Massimo Gezzi
Translated by Damiano Abeni and Moira Egan
Massimo Gezzi was born in Sant’Elpidio a Mare. He has published three volumes of poetry: Il mare a destra, L’attimo dopo and Il numero dei vivi, and was awarded the Metauro, Marazza and Carducci prizes. He has also published Tra le pagine e il mondo, a collection of his reviews and interviews with various poets.
Photo of Massimo Gezzi ©Silvestar Vrljić