Wednesday, February 04, 2009

Sinfonia Muta

Eastside Road, Healdsburg, February 4, 2009

SinfoniaMuta.jpg

I POST THIS SONG here, not because it's particularly important, but because I hope thereby to get back in touch with the author of the poem, Nicu Lutan, who we met in a restaurant in Milan where he was waiting tables.

An engaging fellow, Nicu is anything but reticent. He saw to it that I had a broadsheet celebrating him and his poetry and, most of all it seemed, his connection to famous people. But I found him genuinely likable. And the more I looked at one of his short poems the more I liked it:
il silenzio sta
come un orco enorme
pronto ad ingoiarmi
non gli do retta
e lo strangolo
col mio canto d'amore per te
which my computer helpfully translates as
Hush it is like a orco enormous ready to swallow to me I do not take notice to it and I strangle it with my song of love for you
(I don't know why computer doesn't know that orco means "ogre, bogeyman".)

Well: Enjoying a grappa after dinner I sketched out a little musical setting of the piece on the table-paper. I left it for him, taking this photo with me. I've looked him up and found him here, but the e-mail link on the web page doesn't work any more. If anyone runs across him, will you put him in touch with me please?

No comments: