I finish turning my
twenty-five your
eighty-eight years unfinished his
twelve days after
another twenty-five.
As if I you he
who then is him
had the same
lines on our hands.
As if yesterday today tomorrow
were not places
and were here now
in centuries.
Perhaps the locked code
gull prints
on sand joined
breaths are seen better
from above. Everything has
a million granules’ sense
to form shells.
Halfway
amid deserted sea and higher
woods and mountains
Rootless
shoulders Atlantic
to stand the load
I cannot contain
what contains me.
You were there
nestled against yourself
a small aggregate of rubble
awaiting verdicts is not
the end of the world
if we’re then you and I these trees
to gouge these benches’
wood with fingers
doodle eyes on ants.
It’s June twenty from today
you’re free, says the straight
line of your back
the smile
the flowering fig.
Kiss me,
just once.
Me
who before you
did not ask this of anyone else.
Who will dare to say that you
were and are not
today which is October
and the rain which falls
has millions of years of former
lives.
The emptiness
corridors unfinished love
never-tomorrows
remain.
from Comet
Stella N'Djoku
translated from the Italian by Julia Anastasia Pelosi-Thorpe
Listen to the original read by the poet:
These six poems appear in Stella N’Djoku’s debut poetry collection, Il tempo di una cometa (Ensemble, 2019).
N’Djoku’s modern elegies traverse cycles of intergenerational grief and rebirth, paying tribute to the importance of family, a heritage grounded in the earth, and the roots of a sense of self.
Amid colossal suffering, Il tempo di una cometa offers the tenderness of a kiss, a “flowering fig,” and small moments of new connection that come unexpected. N’Djoku’s voices speak to you, a reader who is “nestled against yourself / a small aggregate of rubble,” and connect us to “the beauty of encounters,” soothed by minutiae. Old and new life are infinitesimal within a wider cosmic purpose, where “[e]verything has / a million granules’ sense / to form shells.”
The death of N’Djoku’s nonno is central to the collection, yet her bereavement is both human and planetary. “[T]he rain which falls / has millions of years of former / lives,” and N’Djoku’s words mourn familial loss with as much gravity as that of plants, mountains, animals, the sun, and the moon.
In the ache of cycling generations, our elders bestow a sense of contribution to the ecosystems within which we are graced: “I cannot contain / what contains me.”
N’Djoku’s modern elegies traverse cycles of intergenerational grief and rebirth, paying tribute to the importance of family, a heritage grounded in the earth, and the roots of a sense of self.
Amid colossal suffering, Il tempo di una cometa offers the tenderness of a kiss, a “flowering fig,” and small moments of new connection that come unexpected. N’Djoku’s voices speak to you, a reader who is “nestled against yourself / a small aggregate of rubble,” and connect us to “the beauty of encounters,” soothed by minutiae. Old and new life are infinitesimal within a wider cosmic purpose, where “[e]verything has / a million granules’ sense / to form shells.”
The death of N’Djoku’s nonno is central to the collection, yet her bereavement is both human and planetary. “[T]he rain which falls / has millions of years of former / lives,” and N’Djoku’s words mourn familial loss with as much gravity as that of plants, mountains, animals, the sun, and the moon.
In the ache of cycling generations, our elders bestow a sense of contribution to the ecosystems within which we are graced: “I cannot contain / what contains me.”
Stella N'Djoku is a Swiss poet, journalist, and educator of Italian and Congolese heritage. Her poems have been published in online literary journals and in the anthology Abitare la parola: Poeti nati negli Anni Novanta (Ladolfi, 2019). Il tempo di una cometa (Ensemble, 2019) is her debut collection. She holds an M.A. in philosophy, and teaches in and directs the Swiss-Italian project Dialogue en Route of the interfaith association IRAS COTIS. She also works with Radiotelevisione svizzera di lingua italiana, the Italian-language Swiss public broadcaster and the the Ferrara-based online radio platform, Web Radio Giardino. She also organizes cultural events in Switzerland. In the wake of the COVID-19 outbreak, she contributed two new poems to the anthology Dal sottovuoto: Poesie assetate d’aria (Samuele, 2020). She can be found at @stellandj.
Julia Anastasia Pelosi-Thorpe translates into English and into the coding language XML (TEI). Her translations of Italian and Latin poetry are published/forthcoming in Modern Poetry in Translation, Asymptote’s Translation Tuesday, the Journal of Italian Translation, and more. She can be found at @jpelosithorpe.
