to the reader

Under the mountain, on the edge of the meadow,
close to the mountain stream of Planaval,
I don't say it coyly,
I picked some flowers:
three of each kind.

For a person I picked them, who for many years has been dead and yet perhaps still
lives here and does not keep us company and maybe doesn't care about the flowers,
nor about the place that has changed.

Maybe I picked them out of uncertainty,
three by three,
precisely repeating a shiver.

Uncertainty of doing it for myself,

Uncertainty of wanting that you,
who do not know this place
who have never been there
and who now read my diary,
seeing the flowers will be moved
and come near me and understand
what it is that still lives on the edge of the meadow
and with the mountain breathes
and blends its voice with the water,
and towers above us.

Translation: 2004, Gabriele Poole