Silence— Mikica Pindzo

May 31, 2023 | Poetry | 0 comments

TRANSLATED FROM THE ITALIAN BY BRENDA PORSTER

Silence

 

There were once

the great languages,

the only ones that could be

rolled up on themselves.

And there were once

the great heights where

the sea fell into the distance.

 

Beside one of the bushes

on the cliff, died

a small memory,

stung by a wasp.

 

+++++++++++++++++++++++++

Hands in hand

I watch a word

eating on my plate:

love, enclosed 

in the letters, I won’t send.

It is here. I spread it tenderly.

To eat in the night that is coming.

Like mould. 

 

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

we waited

we waited

for them to open the gates

a quantity of noise 

in this impression

of action

we waited for them to arrive

a flower in their mouths

every petal

a hope that

we hadn’t lost

and at the moment

of meeting

we forgot

to greet them

 

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

I climb 

the chasm

like the plot of an endless story

The stairway

doesn’t reach the air

 

I still swallow ashes

of her bones

 

I thought I was ready

for that leap

in my hand there remained

half a thorn

The other 

is still flowering and

gives no peace

 

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

 

Moments cut off

in a sequence of revolts

cut off like hands

in the tongue of the dead,

they are still liquid

inside us,

like tears

amputated.

 

The lay heart

wanted

to learn forgiveness 

but it found the prairies

paved and the dead already

buried.


Also, read A Writer’s Joy and Other Poems by Akhmet Baitursynuly, translated from the Kazakh by Jake Zawlacki, and published in The Antonym


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About Author

Mikica Pindzo

Mikica Pindzo

Mikica Pindžo was born in Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1977. She moved to Italy in 1993, where she  completed her studies in contemporary history in Florence. Now she lives in Milan and has a three-year-old daughter, Dalia. From 2007 until now she has written for anthologies and national websites and magazines. Her poetry collection “Dalla terra alla terra” has recently been published by the association “Archivio per la memoria e la scrittura delle donne Alessandra Contini Bonacossi”(Effigi Edizioni, 2023). She received a special
mention for it as a first work in the editorial prize “Arcipelago Itaca” for the year 2018.

About Translator

Brenda Porster

Brenda Porster

Brenda Porster was born in Philadelphia and completed her studies in the U.S. before moving to Florence, Italy, where she has lived and worked for most of her life. Her poems, written both in English and Italian, appear in numerous literary magazines, poetry anthologies and online literary sites in Italy and abroad, and have been translated into several languages.
For some years now she has been the Italian-English translator for Voyages, the Journal of New York University in Florence, and for the Florentine annual poetry festival. She has co-edited and translated three anthologies of contemporary women’s poetry in English and Italian.

  1. Can you please cite the original poem ? Where to find it in Bangla?

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