🌸 Dedicated to Mary
This poem is dedicated to my grandmother, Mary.
I wrote it in 2021, in the heart of the pandemic, when she had moved into our home so we could take care of her.
Her health was fragile. After surviving a heart attack, her heart was weak, and the greatest risk was pulmonary edema.
One night, it happened.
She began to choke—her lungs filling with water—and we had to call the emergency services.
This piece captures the first moment I saw her lying on that hospital bed.
It poured out of me in urgency—my attempt to trap on paper the storm inside me: pain, anger, hope, and love, all at once.
I share it with you in the hope that, somewhere within these lines, you feel something that touches your own experience of love and loss.
The Poem
To Grandma Mary
for her unconditional love
I approach.
Trembling,
my fingers brush yours,
colder, inert.
Wake up! I am Ale.
Wake up! Answer!
Silence:
perhaps it escaped me,
or perhaps it was stolen from me
the moment to tell you goodbye.
What do you want to do with her,
black beast and murderer?
Aren't you satiated
with the time
that greedy and relentless you tear
from all of us?
Of the irrepressible torments to which you condemn
those you don't choose as prey?
Of the livid burning of tears
with which I soaked
those hospital sheets?
Apparently, no,
you never have enough.
So I throw myself to the ground,
with hands outstretched,
gaze toward the sky,
and I implore
Who for some time I had ignored
to watch over
that feeble ray of life.
But every effort seems to me in vain:
I see it now succumb
in the darkness
deathly and asphyxiating
of a cold December night.
And suddenly
a tremor
assails my heart
and fury
swells my temples
and already I taste
the bitter aftertaste
of my remorse,
when behold I glimpse,
anxious and vibrant,
shining
a renewed glow.
Like a shiver it runs through
her veins that teeming of life;
it frees her
from the fetid claws of death;
it shakes her
from torpor.
Wake up! I am Ale.
Wake up! Answer!
Your eyelids open:
"I am always by your side, μωρό μου,
and always will be."
🇮🇹 Original Italian Version
Μωρό μου
A Nonna Mary,
per il suo amore incondizionato.
Mi avvicino.
Tremanti,
le mie dita sfiorano le tue,
più fredde, inerti.
Sveglia! Sono Ale.
Svegliati! Rispondi!
Silenzio:
forse mi è sfuggito,
o forse mi è stato rubato
l'attimo per dirti addio.
Che le vuoi fare,
nera bestia e assassina?
Non sei sazia
del tempo
che avida e incessante strappi
a tutti noi?
Degli irreprimibili strazi cui condanni
chi non scegli come preda?
Del bruciore livido delle lacrime
di cui ho intriso
quelle lenzuola d'ospedale?
A quanto pare, no,
non ti basta mai.
Così mi getto a terra,
con le mani protese,
lo sguardo verso il cielo,
e scongiuro
Chi da tempo avevo ignorato
di vegliare
su quel fievole raggio di vita.
Ma ogni sforzo mi sembra invano:
lo vedo ormai soccombere
nell'oscurità
mortifera e asfissiante
di una gelida notte di dicembre.
E repentinamente
un tremito
mi assale il cuore
e il furore
mi inturgidisce le tempie
e già assaporo
l'aspro retrogusto
dei miei rimorsi,
quand'ecco che intravedo,
trepido e vibrante,
rifulgere
un rinnovato bagliore.
Come un brivido le corre
le vene quel brulichio di vita;
la libera
dalle fetide grinfie della morte;
la scuote
dal torpore.
Sveglia! Sono Ale.
Svegliati! Rispondi!
Le tue palpebre si schiudono:
"Sono sempre al tuo fianco, μωρό μου,
e sempre lo sarò."
μωρό μου (moró mou) - "my baby" in Greek, a term of endearment my grandmother used