IL MORTO DEL MESE

giovedì 25 marzo 2010

Ai (1947-2010)

STILLWATER, OKLAHOMA - E' morta Ai, poetessa statunitense. Nata Florence Anthony, aveva cambiato legalmente il suo nome in Ai (amore in giapponese). Si autodefiniva mezza giapponese, choctaw, chickasaw, nera, irlandese, cheyenne del sud e comanche, possiamo pertanto affermare che si trattava di una vera bastarda.

Alleghiamo nella sua interezza una sua poesia che tratta l'argomento morte, tema molto caro ai nostri lettori:
Conversation

We smile at each other
and I lean back against the wicker couch.
How does it feel to be dead? I say.
You touch my knees with your blue fingers.
And when you open your mouth,
a ball of yellow light falls to the floor
and burns a hole through it.
Don't tell me, I say. I don't want to hear.
Did you ever, you start,
wear a certain kind of dress
and just by accident,
so inconsequential you barely notice it,
your fingers graze that dress
and you hear the sound of a knife cutting paper,
you see it too
and you realize how that image
is simply the extension of another image,
that your own life
is a chain of words
that one day will snap.
Words, you say, young girls in a circle, holding hands,
and beginning to rise heavenward
in their confirmation dresses,
like white helium balloons,
the wreathes of flowers on their heads spinning,
and above all that,
that's where I'm floating,
and that's what it's like
only ten times clearer,
ten times more horrible.
Could anyone alive survive it?
link

Morirono così