Last Dream

Out of a motionless infernal
shudder and clang of steel on steel
as wagons moved toward the eternal,
a sudden silence: I was healed.

The stormcloud of my sickness fled
on a breath. A flickering of eyes,
and I saw my mother by my bed
and gazed at her without surprise.

Free! Helpless, yes, to move the hands
clasped on my chest—but I had no
desire to move. The rustling sounds
(like cypress trees, like streams that flow

across vast prairies seeking seas
that don’t exist) were thin, insistent:
I followed after those vain sighs,
ever the same, ever more distant.

By Giovanni Pascoli
Translated from the Italian by Geoffrey Brock

Photo by Juergen Huettel