Flowerbeds around
where you chased footballs:
and now in the rubble
soiled flowers bloom to the dry breath
of springtime walls.
But in your eyes and in your voice
there is water,
coolness in your depths, rooted
beyond clods and seasons, in what
remains on the tops
damp snow:
and so you rush through every vein
and tell
that remote road still
and the wind
light over gigantic
blue chasms.

[Original Italian by Antonia Pozzi (1912-1938), ‘Periferia in aprile’.]