Dialect Poetry of Southern Italy (Italian Poetry in Translation Book 2)

As the Wind Blows

You know what? When all is said and done
just let this life of mine pass over me
plain as it is, at times so deep in love,
at times instead bedeviled: as the wind blows,
sometimes as soothing as a soft caress,
roaring at other times, and wreaking havoc.
The wind keeps storming here and there, striking
at its own whim, and it seems to us
to have no rule to follow, this wind
that doesn’t brood, whether it’s bearing life
or wrenching it, and for eternity
it runs on and on, observing only
a law that no one’s able to understand,
neither evil nor good but in the end
its numbers always manage to add up.
(Translated by Luigi Bonaffini)