donal mclaughlin

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Bezzola

Clo Duri Bezzola (1945-2004) was born in Scuol / Graubünden and wrote in both Romansh (the fourth language of Switzerland, also known as Rhaeto-Romanic) and German. The following poems are taken from the bilingual volume Das gestohlene Blau / Il blau engulà (Pendo 1998). The author of various volumes of prose and poetry in Romansh, Bezzola is also known for his novel Zwischenzeit (Pendo 1996).

Nine Poems

Clo Duri Bezzola

DAWN

Your breath
caresses me
from slumber

I put my ear
to your heart

Beneath your skin
stories
start to stir

REFLECTION

Tonight
you resemble the moon

Offer a crescent
of skin
and turn
towards the stars

Where my shadow
falls on you
the sun
caresses you

SKETCH

A dream
has got
under your skin

Has painted
frost patterns
on it

LOOKING BACK

A face I do not know
has strewn flowers
across my path

I turn back
round to you
the bouquet
I give to you

********************************

AXIOM

There is
no difference
between
the mountains
and
the sea

Just their
common
proximity
to the sky

RACE

the sky,
frozen,
mirrors
a land
of snow

between the two
birds play
at who
can get away first
and
back again

MEGALOMANIA

Free-falling
gulls
sieve the air,
peck the blue
from the sea
- a gift
for the sky

We’ll get our revenge
tomorrow,
the fish swear

THE TIME IT TAKES

We hesitate
like the wind
and the clouds
between coming
and going

Wait
for the sky
to regale us
with its stolen blue

Published as part of: D McLaughlin, ‘Mitbringsel’ in: J Charnley & M J Pender (ed.), Exercises in Translation. Swiss-British Cultural Interchange, Peter Lang, Berne 2006

Original poems in: C D Bezzola, Das gestohlene Blau / Il blau engulà, Pendo Verlag, Zurich: 1998