translated from the Italian by John Poch

From East Canyon Road
to the few houses of Mayfield,
the wind howls, chases me, reaches me,
and rubs his muzzle on my palms 
and I spread my fingers.
Is it me unleashing it on Arapien Valley?
Not me? No matter.
What matters is the wilderness I leave behind,
and that I no longer see life as answer
or question, and nothing scares me or makes me brave.
Will I have the power to heal or not?
The only thing that matters is
that everything’s here, and my heart burns,
fixed and flickering like a star,
and the language I learned as a child
hardly speaks of this earth anymore.
Let me explain what a prayer is:
the longer I keep my eyes on something
the more real it becomes,
stands still. Yet it blossoms like a rose
and I become good.
Do you believe I never had a doubt,
that I never wondered who I was?
And this is why I wandered to the desert
and exposed myself to the eagle and the kite,
to the rattlesnake, the vultures.
For days I have been like any 
of their prey.
All of you? What would you do
to comprehend your thirst?
By all means, try it one more time,
rattle off one of your endless speeches
on how we should pursue our dreams,
define our goals,
or should we draw a line in the sand
that means we love our neighbor, or hate.
I have looked him in the eyes, the prince of the world,
(I know what I’m saying)
and I have seen he is not deep 
the way he talks of bread and hunger if I am hungry,
of courage and fear when I am hiding.
But what if instead of me saying comfort
I let this immense life be immense,
free to rain on ruin,
say anything at all, look at me
through the eye still open
and yet faceless as the setting sun.
Hush. God, O God!
Pleasure, not pleasure,
yet, not yet.
If I can’t be your Word,
at least I’ll be your listening.