Syria by Eugenio Montale

They said, the ancients, that poetry
is a ladder to God. Maybe it’s not like that
when you read mine. But the day I knew it,
that I had recovered my voice through you–loose
as I was in a flock of clouds and goats
crashing out of a ravine to graze on dribble
of thornbush and bulrush, and the lean faces
of the moon and sun were fusing together–
that day the car broke down and an arrow
of blood on a boulder marked the road to Aleppo.

(“Siria,” from La bufera e altro, 1956, translated by Peter Levine)

Montale

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About Peter

Associate Dean for Research and the Lincoln Filene Professor of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Tufts University's Tisch College of Civic Life. Concerned about civic education, civic engagement, and democratic reform in the United States and elsewhere.