November
Giovanni Agostino Placido Pascoli (1855 –1912)
Gemlike is the air and the sun so bright
that you look for apricot trees in blossom,
and deep inside your heart you feel
the bitter fragrance of the whitethorn…
But the whitethorn is withered, and the dried up trees
draw black patterns against the clear
and empty sky, and the earth rings hollow
under your feet.
All is silent around: but, as the wind blows,
from distant gardens and groves comes
the sound of frail leaves falling. This is the cold
summer of the dead.
In spite of this being an issue full of leaves interpreted in various ways, the topic was not only meant to be a homage to the autumn or to Giovanni Pascoli, but I have chosen it driven by curiosity. I was eager to discover which associations of ideas may come of a few words such as: frail… leaves… falling, without connecting them to each other. I wanted to try and see what would come out of it and this is the result, but I would be glad if all the people who pick up this issue of ILLUSTRATI would stop and think about these three words, together or separate, and then create their own picture, their own story.
frail leaves falling
An ordinary event of nature. The passing of time and, after summer is gone, the arrival of autumn.
A truth. A sentence?
The end that is due to become a new beginning.
The frailty.
The free fall or maybe the necessary or natural fall?
The poetry of a leaf? Its beauty?
The fascination of autumn in our hearts still warmed by summer love, that love that holds out as long as the sun rays are still capable of heating. That love that nevertheless, when the season is gone, falls down like a leaf from our branch to make room for the good sense in our lives. To make room for the new leaves, the green ones. The true ones?
Or the colour. What colour is the word “frail”?
And the autumn? How many colours can we imagine for it?
Freedom. Creativity. Reflection. Charm.
A normal succession of ideas and seasons, of events that can’t be separate from our existence.