Closed Manor

Translated from Italian by Paula Bohince

In the Roman countryside

I know a manor closed and abandoned
from time immemorial, secret
and closed off as the heart of a poet
who lives in forced solitude.

A hedge surrounds it, a wall
of bitter boxwood and the shade of a pine forest.
Not broken, not restless,
the once talkative fountain is silent.

Such is the peace in this decrepit
manor, where it seems almost everything
has been slowly sold off.

Only a rusty weathervane
remains, high up in the silent tower,
turning and turning endlessly.

Corrado Govoni was born in 1884 in Tamara, Italy. He is considered the father of the literary movement of Crepuscularism, literally meaning “Twilight,” and concerning itself with humble subjects, melancholy, and introspection. He also wrote novels, stories, and plays. He died near Rome in 1965.

Paula Bohince is the author of three poetry collections, most recently Swallows and Waves. She has been a recipient of the Amy Lowell Scholarship for Poets Traveling Abroad and an NEA Fellowship. She is the 2020 John Montague International Poetry Fellow in Ireland.

FROM Volume 69, Number 2

Issue 72.2, Spring 2023

Closed Manor

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