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Crossing the Murgia by Sergio D’Amaro
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It’s a realm of fantasy

of invisible castles

of talking trulli, of fields of wheat

that fume warmly in the sudden savannahs.

 

Stride after stride you spy a tower

then boulders on boulders

a grey shield of stone

on the topmost edge

the swift wings of a jay.

 

And you head away from the Garagnone

down to a land of totemic dolmens

you slake your thirst at the St. Magno Fountain.

 

The air thickens with prehistoric warnings

from telluric spirits, from concave echoes,

come together from other sparse ages between wise walls.

 

There, the space opens, rapacious

on the sky above Castel del Monte:

the falcon flies

safely gripping

in his claws

one of his emperor long gone days.

 

(Translation by Susan Perry) 

 

From Murgia (Catalogue from the exibition of the same name by Enzo Morelli, 2011)

Grafica 080, Modugno (Bari)

Castel del Monte. Photo Archivio Fotogramma

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