Amerigo
He
probably got out closing the green door behind his shoulders,
Someone in the meanwhile had got up to prepare him a barley coffee
I don’t know if he turn’d, he was no man so easily lost in regret
Regret is for the rich, and he went on his way without effort
When I got to know him, my first image was that of an old man
Or he look’d old to me, but at that time I was still a young child
I was struck by his bald head and by a mysterious, strange thing
A truss that made him look like a cop with his gun in the holster
But he did feel that morning something new towards his family home
And not to think of it, he had drunken wine for his first time
Hard words to his father, with hunger and escapes in the background
And as for his work, he was a prey to his ancient fatalism
But he was twenty years old, and there was no wrinkle on his front
But anger and adventure, and some vague ideas of socialism
He already got on his face the oil smell and saltiness of Le Havre
He already got in his mouth the dusty smell of blown up mines.
America was in my thought Roosevelt’s GIs, the Fifth Army,
America was Atlantis, America was my heart and my destiny
America was "Life" with its clean-toothed smiles on glossy paper
America, the phantastic, mysterious dreamland of Donald Duck
At that time I saw America as a blessed nation, a world of peace,
A paradise lost in sharp melancholy, a slow neurosis
And Gunga-Din and Ringo, the heroes of Casablanca and Fort Apache
A dream lull’d by the obsessive and incessant sound of Limentra
I don’t know what he was feeling when New York appeared from the ship
A forest of skyscrapers, a town of shit and streets, cries, a castle!
And Pāvana, only a memory left in chestnut woods of the Appennines
English sounded strange to him and pierced him in the breast like a dagger
And ev’ry day he had to work hard and sweat blood from dawn till sunset
Years and years like in jail, beer, prostitutes, hard days
Irishmen and Negroes, Poles and Italians in the coal mines
Sweat and anthracite in Pennsylvania, Arkansas, Texas, Missouri...
He came back, as many would do, with his nest-egg and his youth lost in vain
America was only a corner, America was only a shadowy haze
America was a hernia, a dirty trick like any that life plays on
And saying "boss" for "capo", and "ton" for
"tonnellata", "rifle" for "fucile".
When I got to know him my first image was that of an old man
As any young man does, I used to pass by without stopping and looking
And I couldn’t understand, that man was my own face reflect’d in a mirror
Untill the time will come, that we’ll meet again despite of a’ things
Untill the time will come, that we’ll meet again despite of a’ things
Untill the time will come, that we’ll meet again despite of a’ things!
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