Month: February 2015
“Sicilian Light” poem by Stanley H. Barkan, New York. Translation into Sicilian by Marco Scalabrino, Trapani
(Sunset in Sicily, digitally reworked image by Lidia Chiarelli, Italy)
Credit: first published in
Stanley H. Barkan : Raisins with Almonds / Pàssuli cu mènnuli, (Marco Scalabrino ‘s translations) published by Legas Publishing 2013.
Poetry. Translated into the Sicilian by Marco Scalabrino. “Barkan’s Jewish soul has found in Sicily a receptive and maternal ambience. Perhaps his ancestors were among those who were forced to leave in 1493 when Spain chased them out of the island which had been their homeland for more than a millenium. So these poems are a coming home, not to Jerusalem, but to Sicily.”—Gaetano Cipolla
SICILIAN LIGHT
Even when
the summer sun
hides behind
a black cloud
or falls into the sea
between the Egadi isles
of Levanzo & Favignana,
large & red,
as if it were the end
of the first day,
the birth of the earth.
Even after,
the light seems to linger,
as if the Sicilian earth
were a source of light itself,
competing with moon & stars.
Even when
the mouth is parched
the stomach empty,
the sheer exquisite beauty
of Sicilian light
suffuses the spirit.
For a time
no candle, lamp,
or hearthfire
is needed
in or outside
the casuzze
of the people
of the sun.
STANLEY H. BARKAN
__________________________________________________________________
LUCI DI SICILIA
Puru quannu
lu suli, di staciuni,
s’ammùccia darré
na furana nìura
o tracodda
tra Levanzu e Favignana
granni e russu
comu siddu fussi la fini
di lu primu jornu,
chiddu di la nascita di la vita …
puru tannu,
la luci pari addimurari
comu si la Sicilia, idda stissa,
fussi surgiva di luci
paràggia di la luna e di li stiddi.
Puru quannu
lu balataru è siccu
e la panza vacanti,
la grazia chi sgridda
di la luci di Sicilia
arricrìa l’anima.
Nudda stiarica, allura,
nudda lampa,
nuddu cufularu,
dintra o fora
li casuzzi
di li figghi
di lu suli.
traduzione di Marco Scalabrino
immaginepoesia 