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Zanzotto: Online



Old man, still asthmatic?
talks at his kitchen table

Immersion in air of Veneto
eyes concentrated on thought

5 minutes 27 seconds of film
kicks in at the click of the Pointer

Poppies profusion of sanguinity
he says, our own nature advances where?  

Or the 1 hour 25 minutes 7 seconds
behind bird-like microphones

Multiplicity is a romance,
he says, our words turn into dream moments

Set between at table literary ladies
hauteur rhymes with auteur

But he reaches unassumingly
for words to transfix wounded landscape

One what is one what is one
to do, he says, out here in the marches?

His eyes don’t care for the lens
don’t see us at cable-end years apart

We want more signs but see instead
his eyes thinking as he speaks of roads

Of another war, the roads divide,
he says, the present is made of remembers

Or this video 18 minutes
younger in black and white

Reading in the open air of beauty
and beauty’s checks and balances

His hair gets blown about
a slight breeze coming from the alps

It is too exhausting
his concentrated Italian, his arcane jokes

Breathing quietly before Microsoft
we lose concentration

Wonder what it was got lost in translation
at a loss as to what to leave in Comments

Or watch Treviso church semi-quiet in sunlight
grieving widow? Perplexed publishers?

Roman robes go through their motions
on Mute the priest says the right things

Bustle of Fiats outside on a new day
that is an old film

Old ago as the year before last
12 minutes 20 seconds
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