Written in the USA 

I'm calling you, Virgil, from far away.
It's over two thousand years now
Since you first announced the advent
of the Golden Age, and of the Boy
who would usher in a new Beginning;
remember what you told us then:
after the lesser gifts,
after the earth prodigal in fruits
and the destruction of the serpent,
there will come the great gift:
an end to the Fear that imprisons us.

I'm travelling, Virgil, through a land
we call North America.
The rumours rife in the port
of Brindisi were absolutely right,
Thule was not the farthermost shore;
beyond it lay forests, rivers,
plains, prairies, islands, deserts;
there were human beings who said
Milwaukee, Mississippi, Saskatchewan;
many here repeated your words,
Arcadia, the New Life, Paradise.

If you came here, you'd be amazed.
The life that you and I both knew
and which, like a tireless seamstress,
stitched together all those years and centuries,
has disappeared for ever.
Those threads, that fabric, proved no stronger
Than the webs the spider weaves
Between one blade of grass and another.
I've been to Kansas, I've been to Texas,
I've been to Oklahoma and Colorado:
and I did not see a single solitary shepherd.

I've been to San Diego, Denver, Elko;
There, too, they no longer observe the moon
and the stars before sowing their seeds;
the leaves on the trees whisper
in the void, the rain falls all alone,
the little birds write on the air
messages no one can decipher.
As for the children, you won't see them
playing tag or jacks,
or walking along, arms around each other.
This is another life, possibly better.

And what about Fear, you ask. No, Virgil,
Fear has not disappeared.
It's still here and lets no one
sleep easily by the fountains
or the rivers, in the soft shadows.
I've been to Atlanta, Washington, Durham:
Be careful, they told me, don't go there,
don't cross the street, don't go out at night!
So many policemen, trials, prisons,
electric chairs and gas chambers!
The numbers, Virgil, are frightening.

I'v e been to Alabama, to Virginia,
I crossed the Appalachians to Vermont,
Following in the footsteps of  García Lorca,
who, beside Lake Eden, wept
bitterly for his ill-fated love
and because Death was hunting him.
Do you know, Virgil, that, later, during the bombardments,
he hid beneath the bed
with his nieces and nephews, like another child.
All that's left of Eden is that lake,
those grey waters, those fir trees.

This is America, they cry.
This is the best country in the world!
But they're afraid, Virgil.
If you came here, you would see them
hiding beneath the bed,
weeping on the shores of lakes,
clinging to fir trees so as
not to fall, like García Lorca,
or like me, because somehow
I still haven't got used
to living outside of paradise.

I've been to Boston, to Northampton;
in Hanover, I looked for a phone:
my daughters' voices travelled
four thousand miles and sounded
like two small glass bells.
Jone said: I want some chocolate.
Elisabet cried: Something terrible has happened!!
Pinocchio's been swallowed
by the whale, and I don't how he'll get out!
Three days later, in Grantham,
a bird repeated their words.

Life is so fragile, Virgil!
Birds, bells, words,
what can they do in this new
Iron Age, how will they cope?
If I believed you were a saint, if I did not know
you once served an emperor
and were yourself sometimes lacking in mercy,
I would beg for your protection, I would pray to you.
But we cannot ask you for everything,
we must content ourselves with the consolation
that your verses, though distant, still bring us.

Translation by Margaret Jull Costa