by Primo Levi
But everything about her is useless: all her desires.
She mated with Adam, after sin,
But gave birth only
To spirits without bodies or peace.
It’s written in the great book
That she’s a lovely woman to her waist;
The rest is will-o’-the-wisp and pallid light.
May 25, 1965
1. For the legends about Lilith, see the story by the same name, in my collection Lilith and Other Stories (1981).
In the Beginning1
Fellow men for whom a year is long,
A century a venerable goal,
Exhausted earning your bread,
Worn out, enraged, deluded, sick, and lost;
Hear, and be consoled and mocked:
Twenty billion years ago,
Splendid, moving through both space and time,
There was a globe of flame, alone, eternal,
Our common father and our executioner,
And it exploded, and all change began.
Even now, the faint echo from this one catastrophe reversal
Sounds from the far ends of the universe.
Everything was born from that one spasm:
The same abyss that embraces us and taunts us,
The same time that gives us life and ruins us,
Everything each of us has thought,
The eyes of every woman we have loved,
Suns by the thousand, too,
And this hand that writes.
August 13, 1970
1. “Bereshit,” “in the beginning,” is the first word of Holy Scripture. On the big bang, to which allusion is made, see for example Scientific American, June 1970.
Via Cigna
In this city there’s no meaner street.
It’s fog and night; the shadows on the sidewalks
Crossed by beams of headlights
As if steeped in nothing, clots
Of nothing, yet still like us.
Maybe the sun no longer is.
Maybe it will be dark forever: yet
The Pleiades smiled on other nights.
Maybe this is the eternity that awaits us:
Not the bosom of the Father but clutch,
Brake, clutch, shift into first.
Maybe eternity is traffic lights.
Maybe it was better to spend life
In one night, like a drone.
February 2, 1973
The Dark Stars1
No one should sing again of love or war.
The order the cosmos took its name from has been dissolved;
The heavenly legions are a snarl of monsters,
The universe besieges us, blind, violent, and strange.
The sky is scattered with horrible dead suns,
Dense sediment of shattered atoms.
Only despairing heaviness emanates from them,
Not energy, not messages, not particles, not light;
Light itself falls back, broken by its own weight,
And all of us human seed we live and die for nothing,
And the heavens perpetually roil in vain.
November 30, 1974
1. Cf. Scientific American, December 1974. A dark star is a theoretical star that has a surface escape velocity that equals or exceeds the speed of light.
Farewell
It’s grown late, dear ones;
So I won’t take bread or wine from you
But only a few hours of silence,
The tales of the fisherman Peter,
The musky scent of this lake,
The ancient odor of burned shoots,
The screeching gossip of the gulls,
The free gold of the lichens on the roof tiles,
And a bed, to sleep alone in.
In return, I’ll leave you nebbish1 lines like these,
Made to be read by five or seven readers:
Then we’ll go, each driven by his worries,
Since, as I was saying, it’s grown late.
Anguillara, December 28, 1974
1. “Nebbish” is a Yiddish word. It means “stupid, useless, inept.”
Pliny1
Don’t hold me back, friends, let me sail.
I won’t go far; just to the other shore.
I want to examine up close that dark cloud
Rising over Vesuvius shaped like a pine tree,
And learn where this strange brightness is coming from.
You don’t want to come, too, nephew? Fine, stay and study.
Copy the notes I left you yesterday.
You mustn’t fear the ash; ash on ash,
We’re ash ourselves, don’t you remember Epicurus?
Quick, ready the vessel, night is falling,
Night at noon, a portent never seen.
Sister, don’t be afraid, I’m careful and experienced,
The years that bent me were not spent in vain.
I’ll come back soon, for sure, just give me time
To sail across, observe the phenomena, and return,
So that tomorrow I can write a new chapter
For my books, which I hope will live
Centuries after the atoms of this old body
Will spin dissolved in the universe’s vortices,
Or live again in an eagle, a girl, a flower.
Sailors, obey, launch the ship into the sea.
May 23, 1978
1. Pliny the Elder died in ad 79, during the eruption of Vesuvius that destroyed Pompeii, having gone too near the volcano.
The Girl of Pompeii
Since the anguish of each belongs to us all
We’re still living yours, scrawny little girl
Clinging convulsively to your mother
As if you wanted to get back inside her
When the sky went black that afternoon.
To no avail, because the sky, turned poison,
Infiltrated the shut windows of your quiet
House with its thick walls to find you
Happy before in your song and timid laughter.
The centuries have passed, the ash has turned to stone,
Locking in these gentle limbs forever.
So you stay with us, contorted plaster cast,
Endless agony, horrific witness
To how our proud seed matters to the gods.
But there’s nothing left for us of your far-away sister,
The girl from Holland walled up in four walls
Who wrote about her childhood without a tomorrow:
Her quiet ashes have been spread by the wind,
Her brief life held inside a crumpled notebook.
Nothing’s left of the Hiroshima schoolgirl,
Shadow transfixed on the wall by the light of a thousand suns,
Victim sacrificed on the altar of fear.
Masters of the earth lords of new poisons,
Sad secret guardians of definitive thunder,
The afflictions heaven offers us are sufficient.
Stop and consider before you push the button.
November 20, 1978
Huayna Capac1
Woe to you, messenger, if you lie to your old sovereign.
There are no ships like the ones you describe,
Larger than my palace, driven by the storm.
These dragons you rave about do not exist,
Armored in bronze, gleaming, silver-footed.
Your bearded soldiers don’t exist: they’re phantoms.
Awake or asleep, your mind conceived them,
Or maybe a god sent them to delude you;
This often happens in times of calamity
When the ancient certainties lose shape,
Virtues are denied, faith fades.
The red plague doesn’t come from them; it was here already,
It’s not a portent, not an evil sign.
I don’t want to hear you. Gather your slaves and go,
Descend the valley, run across the plain;
T
hrust your scepter between your enemy half brothers
Huáscar and Atahualpa, sons of my youth.
Halt the war that’s bloodying the kingdom,
So the shrewd stranger won’t profit from it.
He asked for gold? Give him a hundredweight,
A thousand. If hate has torn apart this empire of the Sun,
Gold will inject hate into the other half of the world,
Where the intruder nurses his monsters.
Give him Inca gold: it will be the happiest of gifts.
December 8, 1978
1. Huayna Capac, the Inca emperor, died in 1527, soon after Francisco Pizarro first landed at Tumbes. It’s said that a messenger of his had dined on board the Spanish ship, and that Huayna Capac, now dying, had had word of the strangers’ arrival.
The Gulls of Settimo1
Bend on bend, year after year,
The lords of the sky have come upriver,
Along the banks, up from its turbulent mouths.
They’ve forgotten backwash and salt water,
Shrewd, patient hunting, greedy crabs.
Above Crespino, Polesella, Ostiglia,
The newborns, more determined than the old,
Beyond Luzzara, beyond wasted Viadana,
Bloated with our ignoble
Waste, fatter at every turn,
They’ve explored Caorso’s mists,
The lazy tributaries between Cremona and Piacenza,
Borne on the tepid breath of the autostrada,
Shrieking their mournful, brief salute.
They’ve halted at the mouth of the Ticino,
Built nests under the bridge at Valenza,
Near mounds of tar and leftover polyethylene.
They’ve sailed to nowhere, beyond Casale and Chivasso,
Fleeing the sea, drawn on by our abundance.
Now they drift restless over Settimo Torinese:
Past forgotten, they pick over our waste.
April 9, 1979
1. SIVA (Società Industriale Vernici e Affini), the paint factory where Levi began working in 1948, moved to the suburb of Settimo Torinese in 1953.
Annunciation
Don’t be dismayed, woman, by my wild appearance:
I’ve come from very far, in headlong flight;
Maybe the whirlwinds ruffled my feathers.
I’m an angel, yes, not a bird of prey;
An angel, but not the one in your pictures,
Come down in another time to promise another Lord.
I come with news for you, but wait till the heaving
In my chest, the loathing of the void and dark, subside.
Someone sleeps in you who will rupture much sleep;
He’s still unformed, but soon you’ll be caressing his limbs,
He’ll have the power of speech and the eyes of a fascinator,
He’ll preach abomination, and all will believe him.
They’ll follow him in droves, and kiss his footprints,
Rejoicing and savage, singing and bleeding.
He’ll carry the lie to the ends of the earth,
He’ll evangelize with curse and pitchfork.
He’ll reign in terror, suspecting poison
In spring water, in the air of the high plains,
He’ll see ambush in the bright eyes of infants.
He’ll die dissatisfied with slaughter, having sown hatred.
This is the seed that grows in you. Woman, rejoice.
June 22, 1979
To the Valley
The carriages trundle toward the valley,
Smoke from the brush hangs blue and bitter,
A bee, the last one, pointlessly noses the autumn crocuses;
Slow, waterlogged, the landslides shudder.
Mist rises quickly among the larches, as if called:
I’ve followed it in vain with my heavy, fleshy step,
Soon it will fall again as rain: the season’s over,
Our half of the world wends toward winter.
And soon all our seasons will be over:
How long will these good limbs of mine obey me?
It’s grown late to live and love,
To see into the sky and understand the world.
It’s time to go down
To the valley, with shut, silent faces,
To shelter in the shadows of our troubles.
September 5, 1979
Heart of Wood
My next-door neighbor’s sturdy:
A horse chestnut on Corso Re Umberto;
My age but he doesn’t seem it,
He shelters sparrows and crows, and has no shame
Putting out buds and leaves in April,
Fragile flowers in May, and in September
Burrs with harmless spines
That hold shiny, tannic chestnuts.
An impostor, but naïve: he wants to seem
Like his fine mountain brother’s rival,
Lord of sweet fruit and rare mushrooms.
It’s not a happy life. The number 8
And 19 trams run across his roots
Every five minutes, leaving him deaf,
And he grows twisted, as if he wants to escape.
Year after year, he sucks up gentle poisons
From the methane-saturated subsoil;
He’s drenched by dog piss,
The striations on his bark get clogged
With the avenues’ polluted dust;
Under his bark hang desiccated
Chrysalises that will never be butterflies.
Still, in his slow-witted wooden heart
He senses and enjoys the changing seasons.
May 10, 1980
First Atlas
Abyssal Abyssinia, iridescent irate Ireland,
Steel-blue Sweden,
Finland final end of every land,
Poland near the pole, pale color of snow.
Angular Mongoloid Mongolia,
Coarse Corsica of course, index finger
Pointing at Liguria’s pulled-in stomach.
Argentina jingling jingle bells
Hung on the necks of a thousand argent cows,
Brazil grilled on the braziers of the tropics,
Harried Hungary, brown bowl of goulash.
Italy buffo boot with too tall heel,
Ancona black abscess halfway up the calf,
Blood-black Bolivia, land of bulletins,
Germany turquoise territory of germs and germination,
Fringed Greece heavy udder ringed
With unnumbered squirts of rosy milk,
Unintimidated England, austere lithe lady,
Hobbled, tawny, proud of her feathered hat.
Black Sea cat that coddles its kitten the Sea of Azov
The Baltic praying, kneeling on the ice,
Caspian, bear dancing on marsh mud.
Toxic Tuscany, upended tub,
Handle caught in the brown of a Tuscan cigar.
China cynical oblique stamped on yellow silk
Behind the great wall of bright China ink,
Panama of straw hats, well glued, woven.
Uruguay Paraguay twin little parrots,
Africa and South America ugly iron lances
Raised to menace orphan Antarctica.
None of the countries written into your destiny
Will speak the language of your first atlas to you.
June 28, 1980
July 12, 19801
Be patient, my weary lady,
Patient with the things of this world,
With your fellow travelers, me included,
From the moment I was allotted to you.
After so many years, accept a few gnarled lines
For this important birthday.
Be patient, my impatient lady,
Pulverized and macerated, flayed,
Who flay yourself a little every day
So the raw flesh hurts you even more.
It’s no longer time to l
ive alone.
Please, accept these fourteen lines;
They’re my rough way of telling you you’re loved,
And that I wouldn’t be in the world without you.
July 12, 1980
1. Written for the sixtieth birthday of his wife, Lucia.
Brown Swarm1
Who could have chosen a more ridiculous route?
In Corso San Martino there’s an anthill
Half a meter from the tramline,
And there, right up against the rail
A long brown swarm is growing,
One ant after another,
Perhaps to find their way, their fate.
In sum, these stupid sisters
Obstinate industrious lunatics
Have dug their city here in ours,
Traced their track on top of ours,
And scramble unsuspecting
Tireless on their little errands
Not thinking of
I don’t want to write it,
I don’t want to write about this swarm,
I don’t want to write about any brown swarm.
August 13, 1980
1. Cf. Purgatory XXVI:34.
Autobiography
“Once I was both boy and girl, bush,
bird and silent fish jumping out of the sea.”
FROM A FRAGMENT BY EMPEDOCLES
I’m old like the world, I who speak to you.
In the dark of origins
I swarmed in the blind furrows of the sea,
Blind myself: but already I wanted the light
When I was still lying in the sea floor’s filth.
I swilled salt with a thousand infinitesimal throats;
I was a fish, sleek and fast. I avoided traps,
I showed my young the sidewise tracks of the crab.
Taller than a tower, I offended the sky,
The mountains trembled at my storming step
And my brute hulk obstructed the valleys:
The rocks of your time still sport
The incredible mark of my scales.
I sang to the moon the liquid song of the toad,
And my patient hunger perforated wood.