Doug Roy, The Collection, Cut Paper
Subtraction (Velia, Summer 2022)
Levi-Civita found all the theorems / on the liquids’ equilibrium / […]
No attrition between two drops / of water.
Leonardo Sinisgalli, “L’equilibrio”. Dimenticatoio. Mondadori, 1978.
My translation
Sifr, the Arabian wonder, the no thing that is and does. Zero.
On this bed, this Saturday afternoon, one can distinctly hear
The surf of the sea, the boats, the tower, the shore sing as one:
Everything is finite, the limit sets the value, none is beyond.
So, in this historic strait of war, hunger, draught,
What does it mean or matter all the love I knew, I felt,
Whatever its cipher, order, has been reduced to non-being?
Zero. Mirror without us.
From the Rose Gate parting night and light1, around the hill up to the tower,
Chariots of twin horses keep racing, pain and waiting for it2a against bliss and its memory.
Prize is learning the just limit to oneself, knowing the limit makes oneself,
That finite is the curve of the brain, scars, the tube of the waves,
How these drops of nothing were already there, then, particle of us,
Like water without attrition, learning the theorem on equilibrium.3
Has everything paid its due today, so that2a,
However tomorrow may be, it could walk free, or not be?
Imperceptibly, the many, usual thoughts and I are being undone;
Only this summer wind still circulates in these rooms,
Everything hit and drawn away, according to its rule.2ab
Would my nothing be complete, finite, be with yours at one,2b
As the rest of me are these specks of dust on the reflection of you.
Notes
- Parmenides, On Nature.
- Sophocles, A: Women of Trachis; B: Electra, versi vari.
- “Levi-Civita trovò tutti i teoremi / sull’equilibrio dei liquidi / […] non c’è attrito tra due gocce / d’acqua.”
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Massimiliano Nastri
Review by Bruce Parker
I need to return to the poems of Massimiliano Nastri, they are complex and require deep attention.