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

The Time of Sages

It was a time of sages,
some with their hands and some with their feet
kept body and soul together,
swifts and swallows flew overhead
the tender maiden’s cheek turned red
as soon as she came out in the open air.
Young people died of malaria,
cancer, tuberculosis, plague...
even old age, and most of all
the deepest darkest poverty.
And yet it was a time of sages
a single word from them sufficed
and one could sense the coming of the snow.
(Translated by Michael Palma)