Retaggio

Jo Going

Le pietre devono attendere

che il ghiacciao

le conduca

al mare.

E’ un’attesa

di diecimila anni.

Intanto le pietre

si raccogliono

in un lungo silenzio,

consapevoli della caduta

di ogni infinitio

fioco de neve

che una volta era una stella

Intanto i ghiacciao,

goccia

a

goccia,

sciogliendo

l’aquamarina

nella

luce.

Legacy

Translated from the Italian by the author

Stones must wait

for the glacier

to walk them

down to the sea.

It is a wait

of ten thousand years.

Meanwhile the stones

gather to themselves

a long silence,

recording the falling

of each infinite

snowflake

that once was a star.

Meanwhile the ice,

drop

by

drop,

melts

aqua

into

light.

JO GOING is a resident of Alaska. She has held artist-in-residence and visiting artist positions abroad in Italy, including at the American Academy in Rome. Her book of poems and paintings, Wild Cranes, won the Library Fellows Award and was published by the National Museum of Women in the Arts. It is part of the Franklin Furnace permanent collection at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, where it can be viewed.