National Poetry Day. I can't let it pass unacknowledged. This is a poem I'm liking at the moment.

AEGEAN
(Maria Luisa Spaziani)

This music has lasted since the world began.
A rock was born among the waters
while tiny waves chatted in a soft universal tongue.
The shell of a sea-turtle
would not have foretold the guitar.
Your music has always risen to the sky,
green taproot, Mother Sea,
first of all firsts. You enfold us,
nurturing us with music -threat,
fable, hypnosis, lullaby, roar,
omen, myth,
little agonies
of grit, of wreckages, of joys -

(translator, Beverly Allen)

... and the original -

EGEO

Dal principio del mondo dura questa musica.
Nacque fra acque sasso,
chiacchieravano ondine in morbido esperanto.
Non avrebbe previsto la chittara
un guscio di testuggine marina.
Da sempre sale al cielo la tua musica,
verde radice prima, mamma-mare,
prima di tutti i prima. Ci aviluppi
nutrendoci di musica - minaccia,
favola, ipnosi, ninnananna, rombo,
presagio, mito,
piccolo agonie
di graniglie, relitti, di allegrie -

I especially like the line about a 'morbido esperanto'.