I

I heard the wind at night, howling like a drunken beast.
It wandered unseen among the mountains, then struck the little farmhouse—
and in a long, sharp wail it fled to the woods,
only to return again, more drunk, with harsh cries of silence.
I heard it all night. At dawn, no more. I slept.
Toward morning, I dreamed that peace was falling upon the laborer.
Now I see—it falls indeed. It falls: the soul was divine.
The whole sky falls to earth in the white dust of ruin.
Not a footprint. Even the roads have vanished.
The land is now a single sea, with white waves
where once were furrows of grain.
Only my farmhouse remains, from where I search in vain. No one is left.
And to my calling, only answers the faint chirp of a hungry sparrow.

II

Dance, Mary, upon the smooth beech floor! Let the sieve fly and sing,
its white breath rising like vapor, resting upon your golden hair.
O gentle sieve, I love you. Your fate is like mine:
to hold the husks, and scatter the pure flour along her path.
And you do this with your own happy rhythm,
simple yet lovely to the ear of the pious worker.
But sad, come noon, to the ear of the wanderer
who skirts the worn borders of the long village:
he hears a secret dance, hears within the fingers of a lone woman
you, household cymbal, sounding out—calling the roaming swarm
to the silent hive.

III

Hush now, querulous sparrow: I ask you.
Your cry grows ever weaker: be still—
for I now prepare my humble feast.
Little is much, for one who has only little.
I place upon the hearth, beyond the twigs,
the corn stalks, good for burning.
I kept them just for this. But slow they are to catch:
I scatter the hemp stems that the brake once gnawed.
I threw away nothing that the field gave in plenty:
my hand gathers even the smallest sticks for my long winter.
I keep the dry leaves, too.
From the corn, I warm myself now with the stalks,
and rest upon what remains.
What dries and falls and is forgotten, I gather still—
even what breaks from the heart in sorrow,
and later makes sleep soft, on the day when one must die.

IV

My poor little pile burns and now it glows:
slowly I place the black, porous clay pan on two bricks.
Mary, pour the water into the flour and add the salt:
God’s gift through you.
But think! Man sells to me what You give us.
You fill the seas with it, and man weighs it on a trembling scale:
You season the Andes with it—yet it’s lacking at our table.
But you, Mary, with your gentle hands, tame the dough
and then stretch and smooth it;
and now it’s flat like a sheet, wide as the moon;
and with your open hands, you bring it to me,
lay it soft upon the hot pan, and then step away.
I turn it, and stoke the fire beneath it with the tongs,
until it hisses beneath the gentle heat,
and swells in bubbles:
and the smell of bread fills the house.

V

Who knocks at the door? Is it you, Ahasuerus,
still wandering through the hollow earth—
a dry leaf blown toward some graveyard?
Who knocks? …A bell rings faintly… Who rings it?
Perhaps an old priest, left to guard humanity’s tomb?
He is alone, and still at noon he rings the Angelus,
and calls you home—
you dead, now reaping underground.
I half-open the door. An old, lost shadow,
wandering in search of your body;
a final leaf, still rustling where life once was—
has the wind brought you to my doorstep, old wanderer,
last dead leaf of a vast tree that will not bud again?
But you are alive: you’re hungry! And need has brought you here.
You’re alive: you suffer! You’re alive: you weep!
Then I open the door:
enter, brother, for I too… yes, I live.

VI

Come in, old one, ancient guest:
here is the ancient unleavened bread of heroes,
who once sat, silent, in the shade of their dry-docked ship—
while high on cliffs the eagles soared,
and in the thicket among brambles, the wolves howled unrest.
This is the bread of poverty that you, returning ploughman, find—
quick bait, kneaded only at the sight of oxen:
the bread of humanity, baked among all, upon the altar,
then broken in the shape of the cross.
The bread of freedom, scorning the merchant oven;
you, O father, share it in the sweetest hours of the day:
each one in a circle eats their square;
more for the greater ones—
or perhaps none at all for many;
perhaps the mother had more than enough,
and enough left over to share a bit with each.

VII

Holy, humble unleavened bread of the mournful farmers,
you are the bread of passage,
companion to wild herbs and wandering.
You are the bread which—someday—beneath heaven’s golden light,
men will make upon this kind earth
as they labor in a new Mayday.
They shall pitch their tents on high plains,
and in this shared encampment, each shall live from the craft of his hands.
See the great fire lit by the spring wind!
But aside, solemn, their white beards waving like palms,
the old men speak of unknown slaves—
slaves of others, and of themselves;
but their words seem buried deep,
from ancestors of far-off ancestors.
They then watch their children’s children sit in peace,
with their women and sons, upon the ground beneath the sun,
breaking, in harmony, the bread of labor.

Giovanni Pascoli
31/12/1855, San Mauro Pascoli, Italy
06/04/1912, Bologna, Italy