«Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita
mi ritrovai per una selva oscura,
ché la diritta via era smarrita.»
I should start with this, but I have to steer towards a new direction and maybe rephrase.
«Al finir del cammin di nostra vita
mi ritrovai per un dolor oscuro,
ché il peso portar era duro.»
That heavy weight consisted of two names: Silvia and Claudia. There was a third name, and it was: Italia.
These names generated within me an unbearable state of suffering.
I was living abroad, far from all three of them.
I saw the disaster, probably the final disaster, that Italy was going through.
Italians were being ethnically substituted, living in complete political subjugation, without a hint of rebellion. The best youth were leaving the country, the population was becoming old and diminishing.
The bewildering thing was that despite all this, they pretended to be happy, but they were unhappy and were transitioning into a high state of egotism.
Italian families were becoming more and more just a shelter for selfish individuals. Italian people were selfish and spoiled like children.
Too much wellness and richness, too much stupid television and bad press had degraded their condition.
My daughters, Silvia and Claudia, never called me, and never tried to communicate with me. They seemed completely disinterested in me.
In the end, I was able to capture this tripartite pain in a single poem. All’Italia:
Come posso non piangere se penso
quella Italia, cui Corelli cantava
Fellini dirigeva, Pasolini amava,
Visconti ne urtava, il senso.
Ripenso lei pingue e felice
L'Italia dei sogni che credeva
Che a tutti la vita lei scioglieva.
Come non piangere me infelice?
Io vado ora, io muoio, traditrice.
Che sarà di te Italia abietta
mai libera, tu serva e negletta
E ancella di un popolo morto e giudice.
Padrona doma, l'italo giovane
Ti lascia e non si duole, a lui bagascia
Di solo cibo e nulla vivi pascia
Ti fugge, passa i bordi tuoi lui cane.
Lascia una vita piatta di regole
meschina e che soffocano futile
la vergogna di popolo cieco, inutile
Che scompare felice nel suo sole.
Ancora là i due miei occhi vivono.
E amor inganna speme, ma non muore.
Ė libero dai vincoli e di sé è in sé
E un'altra speranza i nomi, ahimè,
Silvia, Claudia io dirò a voi nel cuore,
Di lontan parlerò al vostro amore,
Piano pronuncerò stessa passione,
La stessa che in vita m'era agone.
E allora potrò, dir piangendo:
Alma terra natia, la vita che mi desti ecco ti rendo.
I wrote this poem after watching videos of the tenor Corelli and Pasolini and remembering Visconti's cinema's great lessons. I began to miss the Italy of my youth, which was beautiful, rich, elegant, happy, safe, and full of hope. I reflected on the present (l'hinc et nunc). Now that I see her from afar, living outside Italy, I see that she has betrayed her own kind and is increasingly a slave to the powers that hold sway over her.
Her best youth have left her, abandoning her like stray dogs lost in the world. A cowardly, weak, slothful people remain in that land. But I still love her, just as I love my two eyes, which still live there: my two daughters, Silvia and Claudia.
Love falsifies hope, making it prefer falsehood over the painful truth. Today's Italy is another Italy, and my daughters, this is the truth, think more of themselves than of me. But I will always love them. Even after death, from afar, I will speak to them with the same passion with which I thought about them in life: a great suffering, my continuous agony.
And finally, through their thoughts and hearts, I will speak. I will return to my land. In that guise, I will return to her in tears of love, to my beloved native land.
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