Ancient one, I'm drunk with the voice -- Eugenio Montale

Guest poem submitted by Aseem Kaul:

(Poem #1815) Ancient one, I'm drunk with the voice Ancient one, I'm drunk with the voice that comes out of your mouths when they open like green bells, then implode and dissolve. You know the house of my long-gone summers stood by you, there in the land where the sun bakes and mosquitoes cloud the air. Today as then I turn to stone in your presence, sea, but no longer feel worthy of the solemn admonition of your breathing. It was you who first told me the petty ferment of my heart was no more than a moment of yours; that deep in me was your hazardous law: to be vast and various yet fixed: and so empty myself of all uncleanliness like you who toss on the beaches among cork and seaweed and starfish the useless rubble of your abyss. -- Eugenio Montale

        From "Mediterraneo"
        Translated by Jonathan Galassi

I miss the sea. One of the disadvantages of living in a land-locked city is
that you no longer have the murmuring presence of the ocean for a neighbour,
no longer observe the ritual of turning that corner onto Marine Drive and
having the Arabian Sea fling open its arms to greet you. Montale, elsewhere
in Mediterraneo, speaks of being "dumbfounded / like a man deprived of
memory / whose country come back to him" on hearing the sea again. That's
the kind of nostalgia that the ocean demands.

And who better to render that nostalgia but Montale (who remains, thus far,
unrepresented on Minstrels) that most brooding of sea poets, whose
relationship with the sea is one of endless return, as though the tide of
his language, retreating, left little images of the sea behind like pools.
What Montale captures beautifully here, I think, is the duality of the sea,
the coming together of stillness and motion, of restlessness  and an abiding
sense of calm. "To be vast and various yet fixed". It's this dependability -
this gift of constant surprise - that makes both Montale and the sea an
object of potentially endless contemplation.

Aseem

Montale biography:
 http://nobelprize.org/literature/laureates/1975/montale-bio.html

And for those who'd like the poem in the original (incidentally, I'd love to
know how good the translation is - I'm a little suspicious):

 "Antico, sone ubriacato dall voce"

 Antico, sone ubriacato dall voce
 ch'esce dalle tue bocche quando si schiudono
 come verdi campane e si ributtano
 indietro e si disciolgono.
 La case dell mie estati lontane
 t'era accanto, lo sai,
 la nel paese dove il sole cuoce
 e annuvolano l'aria le zanzare.
 Come allora oggi in tua presenza impietro,
 mare, ma non piu degno
 mi credo del solenne ammonimento
 del tuo respiro. Tu m'hai detto primo
 che il piccino fermento
 del mio cuore non era che un momento
 del tuo; che mi era in fondo
 la tua legge rischiosa: esse vasto e diverso
 e insieme fisso:
 e svuotarmi cosi d'ogni lordura
 come tu fai che sbatti sulle sponde
 tra sugheri alghe asterie
 la inutili macerie del tuo abisso.

        -- Eugenio Montale