L’odore del sambuco

STEFANO RAIMONDI

Stefano Raimondi, L’odore del sambuco*
[8 giugno 2016 — 17 luglio 2017]

It recalls a blackish leaf
Hanging from an elderberry tree
Lovely symbol of a bowl of blood
Paul Celan

So the sirens had not all fallen silent?
[…]
Turrets it grazes, now, walkways
The visit that started a moment ago: a noise ducks away
As if underground, yet rules it has and a centre
And someone honours you. […]
Vittorio Sereni

[…]
what use are the living if they are far away?
[…]
Ghiorgos Seferis

* The story starts from here:
from these tracks shifted onto nothing
from this howling scrap metal.
“My dad worked here
as did my dad’s dad.
They were the mortar of the walls
They were the locked-out years:
They were the day after the day, forever!”

I
“The factory was our footprint
our cursing continues: strained.
That’s how we used to pray, to feel we were alive.”

II
“We’re so lucky it’s here,” we used to say.
But where was our good luck if
That’s where the rounds started?
They were the things that got us up and made us die.
In that big courtyard
Roots grew high.
Since then being abandoned for me
Smells like an elderberry tree.”

(…)

Unpublished poem in 22 rooms distributed on 22 panels. Installation realized on the occasion of OMNEFEST (Torre Civica, 13th October – 9th December 2018) and published in the book “OMNE/WORK 2016-2018”, LetteraVentidue, Siracusa 2018