Adriana Pedicini, “Il fiume di Eraclito”

Behind the slow swaying of the acacias

The watermark of memory rises

Of the long branch

Slamming on the window

And the face faded among the acre flowers

And the gaze is motionless.

Also today

Between the slow steps

Of this spring

It only spreads in the air

the bittersweet scent of acacias.

This collection by Adriana Pedicini, “The River of Heraclitus”, touches on and retraces all the themes dear to the author, in particular a spasmodic need for life and an immense fear of death. On closer inspection, with a few exceptions, these are, combined with nostalgia (nostalgia leads to a life / which is not the one to live), and the sad passing of time, the topics most dear to writers who are no longer very young. Time flows, like the river of Heraclitus; while you are living, the present moment has already become something else, it is not enjoyed for the anxiety of the future or the regret of the past.

Life is loved in a modest and trembling way, but with a passion that is perceived as violent, almost inconvenient, albeit held in check: the stronger the desire / of this precarious life, life is a desire / strangled in the heart. It manifests itself in nature, in the branch that blooms and renews itself, in the mountain, in the lake, in the meadow, in the river. Especially in the child who is born (of the renovated house / from rosy cries / at the blossoming of life) and, for a moment, with his coming into the world, he defeats Death, which, however, immediately returns to have the upper hand, as a real event , but also as a distressing, omnipresent thought. We are alone in this thought, because it is difficult to confide in one another, perhaps we would not be heard, perhaps we would obtain only a mild invitation to be optimistic, perhaps only a quick and furtive conjuration.

Everything is permeated with melancholy, the poetic fabric at times tears in gashes of pain and fear, at other times it dissolves in sweetness, towards the child who is born, towards conjugal love (tender and necessary love) which, even in the silence of senses, it is still the sweet and ardent one of the early days, but it has also become a refuge, an almost filial consolation (as a small child), capable of transforming sharp stones into round stones, an…