Flower of Youth, The: The Pier Paolo Pasolini Poems
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About this ebook
The time of this story is World War II; the place is German-occupied
northern Italy. Unlike his younger brother, Guido, who took up arms to fight in the resistance, Pasolini chose to help his mother set up a school for the boys, mostly sons of farmers, too young to fight or be conscripted. The situation ignited an internal war that nearly eclipsed the historical moment for the young Pasolini, a battle within between his desire for boys and his Catholic faith and culture.
The book is a kind of novel in verse including a prologue and epilogue that details di Michele’s search for Pasolini, her pilgrimage to the place and research into the time that shaped him as a man and as an artist.
Mary di Michele
Mary Di Michele was born in Italy and raised in Canada. She is the author of a previous novel, Under My Skin, a Harper's Magazine Notable Book, and eight books of poetry. She is a professor in the English Department of Concordia University in Montreal, Canada, where she lives.
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Flower of Youth, The - Mary di Michele
. . . sed carmina tantum
nostra ualent, Lycida, tela inter Martia quantum
Chaonias dicunt Aquila uneniente columbas.
Virgil, Ecloga IX
. . . but what can poetry do
against marching armies? When the eagle flies
tell me what good is the crooning of doves?
Vietato (A Town Called Forbidden)
After the hum of the transatlantic jet
the earthbound jerk and rattle of a train
pulling in and out of small town stations
en route Venezia — Udine —
there’s the heat of the sun high
in a May sky, there’s the haze
of humidity or my sleepless eyes
see now as if submerged
underwater, I understand
nothing, not the time of day,
not the names of towns:
Salice, Pordenone, Vietato —
Vietato, not the name of a town at all,
but a warning sign, Forbidden —
as if this flat and sun-lit terrain could take me
back to the prairie, to Saskatchewan,
where a town called Forbidden
might join one called Forget.
I was bound for Beyond History, a conference at the university in Udine but later I hoped to find a village called Casarsa though I had no idea how to get there, so when I saw Casarsa delle Delizia as one of the stops printed on my train ticket, it felt like a gift. The first of many I was to receive.
•
A beautiful day, full sun, breezes making it feel almost cool, although how can it be cool at 28˚C? I’m now staying at a hotel in Casarsa called Al Posta; it’s near the post office. I take tea in the garden, at a table shaded by a tree. I breathe deeply and the air smells green and tastes almost sweet. I listen.
Your music,
oleander and mosquito,
muted in May.
I would lose the latter part of that duet.
Ah, but what is it if
it cannot pierce, if
it cannot get under your skin?
I hear him whispering,
Such music’s emasculated.
Quietus
(campo santo, Casarsa, Italia)
(Pier Paolo Pasolini 1922–75)
Row upon row of headstones, there’s no green, no grass, just dust and gravel paths around the graves. I walk among them looking for him. Photos of the dead mark most of the graves — their faces, their presence absence. They seem to look out expectantly from the frames. Not forgotten, neither can they forget.
And then there are the graves falling into ruin, the photos, faded and cracked, the images now faint shades of sepia. Are those men and women more than dead, now that even their names are nearly erased? Is the young man whose wreath is still fresh from the funeral, the flowers moist with dew or tears, still alive in comparison?
I cannot find Pasolini. I try again and retrace my steps, walking back up and down the rows under