BROWSE Columns
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Quann’è chi ciucia è tunnu,
accupatizzu ‘u celu
ri cìnniri straviata.
Trèmanu porti, sbàttinu finestri;
purvirazzu nnê strati e fogghi r’àvulu
morti,i cani senza
abbentu…
Rrufuliava, sbattènnumi
nn’a faci, ‘u purvirazzu; si gnuniava
nnall’occhi e ‘i tichiniava
Arràssu, roppu ‘a chiana,
Stagnuni e Cutusìo – isuli e casi –
nfuschi.
Mi firriai,
ciatanni, e rripigghiai
agghiri.
Viulicchia e ficurigna,
‘n mezzu all’alivi, ‘i zzucchi,
pira e ficari, sudda,
carrubbi; quarchi vvìsina,
turciata attornu ê spini,
stanata.
Avia ggià statu
nna ‘sti lòcura a caccia; accirittuna,
lepri e cunnighia, vurpi;
e quagghi, cuccuciuti…
‘I sufunati e cursi,
‘i manu nsanguniati…
Timpi e vaddati – unni –
tistareddi,
saittuna e carcarazzi;
e nn’a vasciura
e ‘bbagghiu; ‘i casa e i mura
a ggiru r’a nchianata.
Cc’era un purtuni ranni,
attangatu; e ri ciancu
nn’a timpa, una ggiannoria
ri pècuri chi gghìanu.
Ru’ canazzi, arraggiati,
currianu p’u bbagghiu.
Eu mi scantai.
(R’i carni squartariati,
‘u dduluri, p’i nervi, ô ciriveddu…)
Un fisco, a ccorpu; e i cani
ê me peri – pilusi
e rrussazzi – firmati
nn’a cursa.
Taliàvanu
cu’ ll’occhi sbarrachiati,
rrunguliusi, scummigghiànnumi
i schagghi.
*
«Ruffuni, Cinnirinu» rissi l’omu.
Era àvutu, i capiddi
nìvuri e i bbaffi longhi,
l’occhi scuri.
«Sugni ri Cutusìo»
cci rissi.
‘U picciriddu
abbiava ‘a massaria.
‘I pècuri jinchìanu ‘a trasuta:
ammazzuniati, ammacàvanu, nfuscati
r’u purtuni.
S’arricampau ‘u nicu,
cu’ ‘n caddu, chi pusau;
rapiu ‘a raricedda
r’a mànnara: aggarrau
‘a pècura chi stava
pi’ tràsiri e ‘a firmau.
L’omu ncugnau un cutu e s’assittau.
‘I manu supra ‘i minni
e strincia;
ri nnê capicchi ‘u latti
niscia a zichittiuna:
rintra ô caddu
mmiancutu addivintava
scuma.
*
‘I facciati r’i manu
ncasciati ncapu ‘i rrini;
e cu’ ‘a schina annarcata
furzau r’u cannarozzu un rrunguliu.
«Nardu, Narduzzu…» rissi.
Fora facia scuru.
Un lumi a ppanza, nicu,
nnô tàvulu pusatu, i varvarotti
rrussiava e ntrubbuliava
‘u nìvuru all’agnuni.
*
Nardu purtau rrarici,
triarri, piacentinu,
‘a vastedda e un fiascuni
ri vinu.
*
Rri nnô vuccuni ‘a vuci libbirata.
«’Sta notti rormi, ma to’ patri no»
mi rissi ‘u picuraru. «L’occhi persi
nnô ciumi, nnê salini,
mpazzutu…»
‘A vista mia annigghiata.
«Eu ‘un vulia fùiri»
cci rissi.
«Sciroccu mi piacia,
‘u ventu ncapu ‘a facci…»
‘U picciriddu
sinitia, mi taliava.
Era cchiù nnicu
ri mia
e tinnirinu.
Ntacciava vino vecchiu
(nnuminatu «scavacchiu»)
ri nnô fiascu abbucatu nnô bbiccheri.
‘Ammirnata, c’u friddu, azzaccanatu;
nnall’astaciuni mmeci
‘u càvuru; e ‘a rricotta,
‘u tumazzu, mircati…
Avia Narduzzu ‘u sonnu
nall’occhi; supra ô tàvulu
‘i vrazza. nturciuniati:
‘a testa ncapu ‘i vrazza e bbaragghiava.
L’omu – cu’ ‘a facci ugghiusa,
rrussu – taliava a mmia,
taliava ‘i manu, ‘u tàvulu,
sti stinnigghiava tuttu,
cuntava, bbaragghiava, abbuturatu…
«Haiu sonnu» rissi. «Haiu sonnu e sugnu
stancu».
C’u lumiceddu ‘n manu
ri l’omu nzunnacchiatu,
passamu all’atra bbana.
Ravanti a mia Narduzzu,
moddu, chi bbunzichiava.
Nnô ‘n’agnuni, a llittera,
cc’eranu sgoppi longhi
ri pagghia.
Mi cci curcai.
Facia
càvuru.
Pi’ nnô feu
– a tturnu, ‘n luntananza –
nfutàvanu appizzusi
i cani.
When it blows, it blows
round, choking the sky
with scattered ashes.
Doors shudder, windows
clap shut; dust hovers
in the street, and leaves
of dead trees; the dogs
will not lie still…
Dust,
reeling, struck my face.
It got in my eyes
and made them smart.
Far away, across
the ravine, the sea,
the lagoon and roofs
of Cutusio –
islands and houses –
were darkening. I
turned, breathing heavy
and followed the path.
Country lanes, cactus
among the olives,
vines, pear trees and figs,
honeysuckle and
carobs; perhaps a
grass snake, twisted through
a prickly pear’s spines,
driven from its hole.
I’d been here before,
out hunting; woodcock,
hare and rabbit, fox;
quails, larks; the gunshots,
the bolting spaniels
and the bloodied hands…
Hilltops and gulches,
like waves; kestrels, kit
rabbits and magpies,
and under the hill
sat the walled farm house:
I could see its roof-
tops in the clearing.
The gate was unlocked,
and from it, looking
down you saw the sheep
In a yellow mass
Coming back.
Two dogs
Came roaring from the
house. I was afraid
(of torn flesh, of pain
along the nerves and
rising to the head…)
Then came a whistle;
the dogs at my feet
– great beasts, bristling
with reddish hair – stopped
short, eyes stretched open,
growling, showing me
their teeth.
“Oh, Ruddy!
Greyling!” called the man.
Tall, black haired, with long
moustaches; eyes dark.
“I’m from Cutusio,”
I called to him.
A boy was bringing
in the flock. The sheep
overflowed the gate:
pressing, cramming in;
mashing their flanks,
confused, on the gateposts.
The little boy came
back with a bucket;
he opened the stile
for the sheep: picked one
from the stream, seized it,
held it still. The man
Sat down on a rock.
Then, hands on the teats
he squeezed; and the milk
spurted:
in the pail
it whitened and foamed.
*
With palms pressed into
His great arching back
He forced a growl from
his throat:
“Leonardo!
Nardo, come here…”
he called out.
Night fell.
A bellied lantern
Laid on the table
Reddened our chins. The
glare hid the corners
in flickering shade.
*
Leonardo brought
radish greens, sharp cheese,
tomatoes, a round
of yellow bread, and
a great jar of wine.
*
The voice stirred in his
mouth. “You’ll sleep tonight,”
the shepherd told me,
“But you’re father won’t.
He’ll wear out his eyes
along the river
or by the salt flats,
going mad…”
My sight
went misty. “I didn’t
run away. I just
liked the sirocco,
the wind in my face…”
The boy, Nardo, was
listening, watching
me. He was younger
than me, and timid.
He gulped the old wine
(the kind called “cockroach”),
refilling his glass.
The knife of winter,
the summer heat; their
cheese and ricotta
alone sustained them.
Nardo had sleep in
his eyes, arms folded
on the table: then
his head on his arms,
and he yawned.
The man –
face red and shiny,
stuffed like a barrel –
gazed at me, his hands,
then at the table;
he stretched his arms, yawned
as well, and said
“I’m sleepy. I’m sleepy
and worn out.”
Lantern
in hand, half asleep,
he ushered us into
the other room.
Nardo before me
Staggered as he went.
Piled in a corner
were bales of straw. I
lay down.
It was hot.
Far off in the night
the dogs insistently
howled in turns.
Nino De Vita (b. 1950) is my cousin; that is, he’s my grandmother’s first cousin, and he looks alarmingly like her: small, with a fine complexion and alarming blue eyes. I don’t know Nino personally. He has lived his whole life in the Contrada Cutusio, the village on the outskirts of Marsala, on my family’s street. I have seen him, now and again. I’m sure I saw him once in Erice, wrapped up romantically in a red scarf. And yet I have never spoken to him. Nino – dare I call him Nino? – is one of the most accomplished dialect poets in Sicily. His work has earned him the Moravia Prize, the Albino Pierro Prize, and other literary distinctions. Italo Calvino wrote enthusiastically about him, and he was a personal friend of that devastating prophet of the island, the novelist and senator Leonardo Sciascia.
The poem translated here comes from his book Cutusìu, named for the village. His poems are never quite lyrics and and never quite stories. Often, his line has no verb at all, and his story no resolution; the book is elliptical, a series of old photos of life in southern Italy at the time of the Marshall Plan, the founding of NASA, and the Beatles on Ed Sullivan, with no electricity, no running water, and mules pulling carts on country lanes. My mother was four years old at the time this particular poem takes place, in one of the houses the 13-year-old narrator sees from his rocky fastness. The thought of it feels like a bite on the spine.
All of Cutusìu is written in Sicilian, a language in its own right but without an academy to instruct its orthography. Certain letters disappear in speech – the Italian grande becomes ranni– and Nino will double initial consonants to illustrate that rich pronunciation, so Greek in its hardness and so Arabic in its purr. Baglio becomes ‘bbagghiu. All this would rather frighten a reader, even a native Italian speaker (perhaps especially a native Italian speaker), except that Nino has translated all of them into standard Italian on the facing page. I was glad of it. I had difficulty with some of his words: in part, perhaps, because I grew up in the United States but also, I suspect, because these words were archaic, and have long died out. I never knew my grandparents’ generation, who were and are older than Nino, to say triarri for tomato. In fact one uncle, born in 1931, once told me that his parents – from Cutusio, no less – called the tomato u pumu r’amuri, the apple of love. But triarri is the word used here. I suspect that Nino enjoys the full baroque panoply of Sicilian, full of apostrophes and antique words and other ornaments. The dryness of his stories, in unrhymed settenari (lines with the final emphasis on the sixth syllable), seem far away from such extravagance, and may require it.
One mystery of translation remains. The title of this poem is “Quann’è chi ciucia è tunnu”, which translates without trouble into “Whenever it blows, it’s round” or “When it blows, it blows round”. The title in Italian clarifies: “Quando scirocco soffia, è coperto”, or “When the sirocco blows, it’s covered”. Scirocco is easy enough: it’s the sirocco, the southeasterly wind that blows sand and bad weather out of Africa, causing respiratory problems and vivid dreams. But how did he get coperto from tunnu? Tunnu (tondo) means rounded, or circular, or spherical; coperto means covered, in the ordinary sense. Let the reader forgive me for missing the pun; I’ve translated tunnu as “round,” in the sense of things coming round. I hope someday to ask Nino myself.
Carlo Massimo works as a reporter in Washington. A former contributing editor at the Wilson Quarterly, his poetry and fiction have appeared in the Account, Barzakh, Bitter Oleander, and other journals, as well as La Piccioletta Barca. Follow him on Twitter at @CarloMassimo6.
