This morning, walking around the lush hills that surround Lake Pergusa, I came across some bushes of Spanish Broom. Their scent filled the hill.
Seeing those delicate flowers, I recalled the Italian poet Giacomo Leopardi, one of the greatest poets in the world.
As a very young man, he wrote his poems, and then his poetic inspiration dried up. He could not write beautiful poems anymore!
Only at the end of his life, he got inspiration again and wrote the beautiful poem of which I have translated a few lines, hoping he will forgive me for my amateur translation.
LA GINESTRA
E tu, lenta ginestra,
Che di selve odorate
Queste campagne dispogliate adorni,
Anche tu presto alla crudel possanza
Soccomberai del sotterraneo foco, …
E piegherai sotto il fascio mortal non renitente
Il tuo capo innocente.
THE SPANISH BROOM
And you, lingering Spanish Broom
That decks this bare countryside
With scented bushes,
You too will soon succumb to the cruel power
Of the underground fire (the lava from Vesuvius)…
And you will bend your innocent head
Under your flexible, mortal bunch…
Ettore Grillo, author of these books:
– November 2: The Day of the Dead in Sicily (English edition)
– A Hidden Sicilian History (English edition)
– The Vibrations of Words (English edition)
– Travels of the Mind (English edition)
– Una Storia Siciliana Nascosta (Italian edition)
Ettore Grillo's Blog 