Vigil (1915)

A whole night long
crouched close
to one of our men
butchered
with his clenched
mouth
grinning at the full moon
with the congestion
of his hands
thrust right
into my silence
I’ve written
letters filled with love
I have never been
so
coupled to life

Giuseppe Ungaretti [Translated from the Italian]

Giuseppe Ungaretti was born in 1888 in Alexandria, Egypt, to Italian parents.  He studied classics and from an early age loved poetry.  In 1912 it returned in Italy, and then moved to France to study in Paris. He became a friend of Apollinaire, and knew great painters like Picasso, Modigliani and Toulouse-Lautrec.  It was in this period that Ungaretti began to write poetry. In1914, on the outbreak of war, he returned in Italy. Ungaretti was one of the many enthusiastic young people, convinced that the war had to be fought against Austria, in order to reclaim lost Italian territory.  He enlisted as an ordinary soldier. In 1916, then was transferred to France with the Italian Army corps and fought in the Champagne.  The suffering of the trenches, the preciousness of life, and the barbarity of war, became the theme of his poetry in this period.  Ungaretti survived the War and settled in Rome, eventually teaching Italian literature in Rome University. He died in June 1970 at the age of 82.