Alessio Zanelli

Iceblink poem
Snowy floodplain near Stagno Lombardo, Lombardy, Italy

Iceblink

Cold yellow, as of winter sun; even the silhouette of stocky white
mulberries—usually might and sharp—looks fuzzy, virtually

rubbed out by the glare. The air sizzles noiselessly, pervades
the outerwear, invades into the mouth, slips liquid down

the windpipe. And in front of the breadth, of the overflowing energy
of the glittering sweep, one would want to be the river—streaming

careless through it, not bothered at all, about still—subverter of
time and disrupter of space. One would nearly miss the uncolored

clouds—shapeless cover, border and detail swallower which
compacts everything, in so doing annulling it. One instinctively seeks

a mark, a scratch in the glow that brings back to time and reinstates
in space, a sheet anchor. So, between a row of skeletal poplars and the

water-grazing flight of crows, at last one yields to diffused light, harboring
the illusion of being able to gather and dominate it by reciting a line by

Tranströmer or humming a tune by Mussorgsky. For all one strives
to have a way with it, the glints can’t be stolen from the enfolding range.

First published in The Interpreter's House (UK)