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

The Crossroads

The footstep
sinks
like heavy lead.
Over the fallow ground already sown
a band of crows scatter and call
and flap their wings.
Whom are they calling?
Weighed down by the years and the hardships
the name
drops to the depths.
It’s getting dark, and you can make out
the crossroads;
a light comes on again.
There is, there is, there is someone to take
the knapsack from my back and hang it up
for those who follow.
A feather from the breast
the heaviness has become.
No longer any roads
nor any fallow fields nor crows
beneath the flight.
All alone returns the ancient sleep.