I GIGANTI - Terra in bocca
Terra in bocca (prima parte) / Soil in the mouth (first part)
They found you stretched at full length
With four bullets
planted in your chest
They shot you treacherously
They didn’t let you
suspect anything
Now you’re laying without your shoes
In a hawthorn
bush
While the boats that remember you since you were a child are sailing
on the sea
Somebody’s already running down the alley
While the police
passing by
Carry your body without life
To your house still asleep
As
soon as your relatives see you
They begin to cry and to mourn
Your father
set off
with his double-barrelled gun
He runs panting for vengeance
Of
course he knows the killer
And he’s already waiting for him
at the crossroad
And
when the killer passes along the ditch
He shoot him into the face and so
be it
Then in the village white of sun
Your funeral silently streams
People
cry, the violets blossom
And a girl get sick
They put you into the
ground
In front of the sea
Your first love
You can’t do nothing with
your past
For you the hours do not run anymore
How many hopes how
many illusions
You had on this world
They killed you without a reason
As
they would have killed a soldier in war
They found you stretched at full
length
With four bullets planted in your chest
You thought you were almost
immortal
But you died in a common way
When you were just sixteen
You
were my best friend
I remember all of you
This morning I woke up early
Because
I couldn’t sleep
And walking again over
your last day’s steps
I’m
on the beach and I’m staring at the boats
That come back with the lights
off
You were coming back in the morning
After a night of fish and
stars
I remember your face
That vein on your forehead
That just in
that moment
Was beating a little bit harder
On that day our village
was awakening
As ever, as every day
With the early women sitting
on
their home’s stairs
With the fishing-nets stretched to dry
With the first
smell of bread
With the voices of the peasants in the fields…
In the
whole village
There are only hundred houses
A big church with the bell
tower
And a pub without pretension
There are only hundred houses in the
village
It is so curled up that it seems a courtyard
Four narrow alleys
That
lead to the square
One woman, two women, one old man, one child with jugs
on their heads
A long procession
Goes down to the centre of the village
Just
to buy water
In this damned village
The Municipality has been promising
An
aqueduct for twenty years
But it has only been promising
The harvest is
dying
Here it never rains
We are tired to wait
The water never comes
There’s
only one carter that at every hour
Passes by with the drinking water
He
sells it for ten lire at glass
People without money can’t drink
The
name of the carter is Tommaso
He’s a good man
He works for Don Vincenzo
Who
shares the power in the village
With Don Gaetano
Speculation on labour,
on building trade
On citrus fruits and fish export
And only because of
prestige reasons
They contend to each other the business
of water distribution
That
is the very respectable balcony
Of Don Vincenzo – Bacio le mani (1)
The
patriarchs of two families
As they were two Nations
Fight thousands battles
They
have been enemies for generations
Monday: shots in the fish-market
Tuesday:
they blew up a house with TNT
Wednesday: in the country a shepherd
was
murdered
Thursday: they threw down the tank truck
from the dock
Friday:
they found the cistern polluted
Then on Saturday all the village was
without
water
But on Sunday everybody goes to the square
To celebrate the Saint
of the day
Everybody greets, everything’s O.K.
Good morning don Vincenzo
Good
morning don Gaetano
Send my regards to your wife (2)
Let’s greet, let’s
greet
Anyhow who pay the cost
Is the people of the village
But
on Sunday everybody goes to the square
To celebrate the Saint of the day
Everybody
greets, everything’s normal
Then in the village white of sun
Your
funeral silently streams
People cry, the violets blossom
And a girl get
sick
You, you full of sun
She, she white of salt
A sunset that
was dying into the sea
That’s how you fell in love each other
On Sundays
you were looking
For her glance among the people in the church
She was
stealthy smiling
Fearing God’s blame
“Tommaso, you must give me the
water”
“I can’t give it to you
You still have a debt of 70 lire”
“But
you know I need it for my fields,
For my cattle, for the harvest
It hasn’t
rained for a long time”
“There’s nothing I can do
You must ask to Don
Vincenzo”
“Never! – I don’t want to owe anything
to anyone”
“But
Don Vincenzo is a good man
He’s done good to everybody in the village”
“I
know this kind of charity,
Go to Don Vincenzo
And tell him that I will
find the water by myself digging in my field”
You, you full of sun
She,
she white of salt
A sunset that was dying into the sea
That’s how you
fell in love each other
On Sundays you were looking
For her glance
among the people in the church
She was stealthy smiling
Fearing God’s
blame
You had been talking for a year
Your parents were happy
Then
you would have married
I was been chosen to be your best man
You full
of sun
She white of salt
A sundown that was dying into the sea
(1) Typical greeting
expression of Sicily
(2) Voices of people in
the dialect of Sicily
(3) It’s difficult to
me translate the word “omertà”. In my dictionary it’s translated with “silence”
but I think that’s not correct. “Omertà” is the silence of the witnesses to the
police because they fear the Mafia and his code of “honour”.
Terra in bocca (seconda parte) / Soil in the mouth (second part)
A bells’ lament
Breaks in thousands sounds
Slow and
gloomy magic
That doesn’t let sleep anybody in the village
When I
was talking about your father
And about the tragedy of a village
Where
“omertà” rules
You used to withdrawn into silence
And you didn’t almost
speak at all
Yes, in your innocent glance
There was only ingenuity
You
full of sun
She white of salt
These imagines are for me souvenirs
Of
a fragile love
Of a simple love
Of your desperate love
That doesn’t
want to die
Stubborn like a donkey
Violent like a storm
Fragile like
a scary child
Misery brings in his womb
Violence like a son
That
will have to eat up all the good
To grow up
Leaving only the evil
Your
world stopped
Now nothing is worth for you
Your youth is burning
And
nothing is more precious
Than a date
With her
Yes, in your innocent
glance
There was only ingenuity
You full of sun
She white of salt
These
imagines are for me souvenirs
Of a fragile love
Of a simple love
Of
your desperate love
That doesn’t want to die
Stubborn like a donkey
Violent
like a storm
Fragile like a scary child
On Sundays you were looking
for
Her glance among the people in the church
While she was stealthy smiling
Fearing
God’s blame
You full of sun
She, white of salt
These imagines are
for me souvenirs
Of a fragile love
Of a simple love
Of your desperate
love
That doesn’t want to die
Of your treaded love
Of your love treaded,
wounded and killed
By this time it wasn’t a mystery
anymore
In
the village everybody knew
Everybody knew
I worn out my hands
Working
under the sun
That was burning the hills
I broke into shivers every clod
Every
single piece of soil
In my farm
These hands have been digging
But I
never found the water
Someone then gave me advice
To mind my own business
That
was for personal reasons
I answered them to go away
I do what I like
This
ground is my home
They threatened me
And they wounded my pride
I lied
because of my honour
And I shouted in their face
I found the water and
I’m going
to give it for free to everybody
Then I found my mule slaughtered
Then
they burn my barns
Someday after they cut down my vineyard
Just to frighten
me, to frighten me
No no no I won’t give up
Just to frighten me, to frighten
me
No no no I won’t give up
They found you stretched at full length
With
four bullets planted in your chest
They shot you treacherously
They didn’t
let you suspect anything
When they found your body
Without shoes without
life
Your black eyes
Wide open in the void
In front of the death
Took
a photograph of the fear
When they found your body
Without shoes without
life
In your mouth still open
To invoke for the last help
There was
no breath but only soil
They watched all night at you
In your death-bed
In
your Sunday clothes
Everybody in the village saw you
They kissed your
hands
They caressed your hair
They paraded silently
Everybody is
silent now
The house is crowded
People pray while crying
For each prayer
one rose
They covered you with roses
Sitting on a chair I’m watching everything
But
I’m not so brave to look at you
Who have I to thank
For this dead
son
For this pain
For my pain
For this
Who have I to thank
The
hand that murdered you
Is the selfishness of the power
Or my pride without
limits
And the meaning that I give to honour
I knew I couldn’t
Fight
against the mountains
But I was ready to pay
To pay by myself in person
How
could I think
Me, that gave life to you
To give you to death
Talking
is useless
Because your body is just a suit
Covered only with flowers
Left
on the bed
On your death-bed
Sitting on a chair I’m watching everything
But
I’m not so brave to look at you
Who have I to thank
For this dead
son
For this pain
For my pain
For this
Who have I to thank
Who
have I to thank
Your mother the earth
In a new wound
Will cover
your body
With a shoot of wheat
That could die during the winter
Without
blossom
No no no, that’s not true
That’s only fantasy
This earth
will hate you
Will dig into your body
Will deform your face
What will
remain of…
Your mother the earth
Will plant into your heart
Roots
of roses to give you the life
Every year in springtime
When the sun will
come back
No no no, that’s not true
That’s only poetry
This earth
will hate you
Will dig into your body
Will deform your face
What will
remain of…
It will remain only
Only my remorse
Like a shadow
It
won’t leave me
It will scream in the night
In the silence of the night
Slowly
it will destroy me
It will destroy me
I’m crying, I’m crying, I’m
crying
I know who I have to thank
Now I know what I have to do
Yes,
I know who I have to thank
Now I know what I have to do
Of course
he knows the killer
And he’s already waiting for him
at the crossroad
And
when the killer passes along the ditch
He shoot him into the face and so
be it
Then your father gave himself up to the police
But from the
jail he let us know
That he would have liked
You were buried in his farm
Near
his home in his field
When we started digging
that ground
Something
extraordinary happened
The soil begun to get wet
More and more, more and
more
Streams of water like blood in the veins
Wet that arid ground
Your
father was right
He lost a son
But he found the water
Yes, but if your
father was right
What was your reason?
They found you stretched at
full length
With four bullets planted in your chest
They shot you treacherously
They
didn’t let you suspect anything
Now you’re laying without your shoes
In
a hawthorn bush
While the boats that remember you since you were a child
are sailing on the sea
Somebody’s already running down the alley
While
the police passing by
Carry your body without life
To your house still
asleep (x2)
As soon as your relatives see you
They begin to cry and
to mourn
Your father set off
with his double-barrelled gun
He runs
panting for vengeance
Of course he knows the killer
And he’s already
waiting for him
at the crossroad
And when the killer passes along the
ditch
He shoot him into the face and so be it
Then in the village
white of sun
Your funeral silently streams
People cry, the violets blossom
And
a girl get sick
They put you into the ground
In front of the sea
Your
first love
You can’t do nothing with your past
For you the hours do not
run anymore (x2)
How many hopes how many illusions
You had on this
world
They killed you without a reason
As they would have killed a soldier
in war
They found you stretched at full length
With four bullets planted
in your chest
You thought you were almost immortal
But you died in a common
way
When you were just sixteen
(Translation by Andrea Parentin)