Finisco di compiere i miei
venticinque anni i tuoi
ottantotto incompiuti i suoi
dodici giorni dopo
ancora venticinque.
Come se io tu egli
che poi è lui
avessimo le stesse
linee delle mani.
Come se ieri oggi domani
non fossero luoghi
e fossero qui ora
nei secoli.
Forse dall’alto si vede meglio
il codice serrato
le impronte dei gabbiani
sulla sabbia il congiungersi
dei respiri. Tutto ha il senso
dei miliardi di granelli
a formare le conchiglie.
A metà
tra mare deserto e più su
montagne e foreste
Senza radici
spalle atlantiche
per sopportarne il peso
Non posso contenere
ciò che mi contiene.
Eri lì
poggiata a te stessa
un piccolo cumulo di macerie
aspettare i verdetti non è
la fine del mondo
se poi siamo io e te questi alberi
a solcare con le dita
il legno di queste panchine
disegnare gli occhi alle formiche.
È il venti di giugno da oggi
sei libera, lo dice la linea
dritta della schiena
il sorriso
il fico in fiore.
Dammi un bacio
solo uno.
A me
che prima di te
non ne ho chiesti a nessuno.
Chi oserà dire eri
e non sei
oggi che è ottobre
e la pioggia che cade
ha milioni di anni di vite
passate.
Rimane il vuoto
i corridoi
l’amore incompiuto
i domani di mai.
da Il tempo di una cometa
Stella N'Djoku
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.
