for M.
there is a lone man on the cusp
on a wide-open palm of stone quarried
where the pressure of plural millennia of magma
and wind, after, where once was sea,
have left uplands of igneous isles to traverse
plural millennia of wind have passed
since mankind learnt to read the stars
but he looks down, like at a magnetic
pole he cannot leave, nailed
to that ray of light he finds himself in
where the dust drinks electric particles
and the Cartesian balance breaks down
of gridlines that cannot right our steps
vast deserts are born in the heart
of the prehistoric man missing in the ice
Bedolina in the eye of the man watching
is much more than a time machine
more than a piece of history, however remote
however still part of the Before of history
Bedolina in the eye of the man watching
is a ridge, is the risk of a stone in the eye,
is a palm gesturing towards the sky
asking the god of thunder to explain
the boundless cartography of time
and that man on the cusp on the edge
of the world does not realise
that the axis mundi, today’s meridian
is his fragile body on the cusp
is the dust that will be and the blood that is
is all the light passing
between him and the stone
between him and the dull echo
of a new Big Bang
note to text:
The Bedolina Map, in Val Camonica, is a rock carving depicting a real territory, with fields and paths, dating back to the Iron Age. It is likely the oldest known depiction of a landscape in Western culture. The text refers to a photo depicting philosopher and geographer Franco Farinelli, a keen observer of terrestrial writings, right on the edge of the Bedolina Map.
photo credits:
Mariadonata Villa – Lupe de la Vallina
Rob Packer – Amelie Baasner
Mariadonata Villa lives and works as a teacher in Modena, Italy.
She published the collections L’assedio (Raffaelli, 2013) e Verso Fogland (Minerva, 2020). She’s a translator and poetry contributor to quarterlies and newspapers. Her interests also include visual arts – for her yearlong visual project, The year of the birch, please refer to @merydon on IG.
Her first book written in English, Fire/Flies is forthcoming this Fall from Bored Wolves press.
Photo Credit: Lupe de la Vallina
Rob Packer is a multilingual, London-born, Berlin-based poet. His work includes the collection A previsão do tempo para navios, published in Brazil and named one of the books of 2022 in the Folha de São Paulo newspaper.
Photo Credit: Amelie Baasner
