Down at the end of the valley
there’s the river and the road.
And there’s also the little man, there he is,
strolling along with the river,
and then he stops and stays.
He’s a dot, a nothing. But he does what he wants:
within the realm of nothing, that is.
Giu’ al fondo della valle
c’e’ il fiume e c’e’ la strada.
E c’e’ pure l’omino, eccolo la’,
che cammina col fiume,
e poi si ferma e sta.
E’ un punto, un nulla. Ma fa quel che vuole:
sempre nel giro del nulla, si sa’.
Our dearly departed
are always still there where they stopped
along the road that always keeps on,
under the sun, under the rain.
We’ve moved on, so long, so long, but they
don’t know how to let go;
they follow us with long eyes of pain,
and never lose us from their sight
regardless how far we’ve moved on
along the road that always keeps on.
I nostri poveri morti
son sempre li’ dove si sono fermati,
lungo la strada che sempre cammina,
sotto il sole, sotto la pioggia.
Noi ce ne siamo andati, addio, addio, ma loro
non sanno staccarsi da noi,
ci seguono con quei lunghi occhi dolenti,
ne’ mai ci perdono di vista
per quanto lontano si vada
sulla strada che sempre cammina.
Martin walked around with his old dog
along trails in the mountains.
One next to the other, without saying
a word, just trading some glances.
Now, I don’t know about the dog. But Martin
is gone from the world of the living.
I wonder if out there, there are mountains, trails
in the woods, dogs: an old dog
that walks along by his side
In silence, trading some glances.
Martin andava col suo vecchio cane
per viottole di monte.
L’uno al fianco dall’altro, senza dire
motto, solo scambiando qualche sguardo.
Ora non so’ del cane. So che Martin
se n’en andato dal mondo dei viventi.
Chissa’ se c’e’ laggiu’ monti, sentieri
di bosco, cani: un vecchio cane
che gli cammini al fianco
in silenzio, scambiando qualche occhiata.
Like that, I stopped
at the foot of the bridge.
Like that, you stopped also,
one step above.
I didn’t know it was goodbye.
I understood moments later
feeling your lips brush against mine.
It was the first, it was the last time.
Like that.
E cosi mi son fermato
ai piedi del ponte.
e cosi ti sei fermata anche tu
un gradino piu su.
Non sapevo ch’era un addio.
L’ho saputo un’attimo dopo
sentendo le tue labbra sfiorare le mie.
Era la prima, era l’ultima volta.
Cosi.
Translator’s Bio
Laura Valeri is the author of three story collections and a book of essays. Her most recent books are After Life as a Human (Rain Chain Press, 2020) and The Dead Still Here, (SFASU Press 2018). Laura’s stories, essays, and translations appear in numerous journals, including The Festival Review, Cagibi, PRISM, The Forge, Your Impossible Voice, Conjunctions, Waccamaw, South85, Assay, and others. Laura Valeri teaches creative writing at Georgia Southern University and she is the founding editor of Wraparound South, a literary journal.
