Author’s Note: These poems take as their inspiration Leopardi’s “A Se Stesso” and “A Silvia.”However, lam reluctant to refer to them as translations or adaptations. Although they were occasioned by Leopardi’s poems, they are very much the product of my own preoccupations.

Heartsick, settled for good, now finally
you know something: what you thought would last
is gone, one more last false thing. Lost, shattered again,
not just the hope you’ve always felt
but the desire, too,
that semblance own your heart. Settled now
for good. You toiled. What’s worth
your rage and will and trouble?
No world is worth
so much grief. Life galls
and bleeds us. What’s left? The world, our slime.
So stop now, rest, give it up
one last time. Our species has one end—
we die. Nothing more. Nature, brute force,
prevails, in hiding, and makes the world
a common grave and all things
an inexpressible emptiness.