Alessio Zanelli: ‘Little Ode’, ‘Run’s End’ and ‘The Shell’

Little Ode To My Plain

Mighty mulberries,
once delimiting the plots,
and slender poplars,
once showing the way—
time has not been kind to them.
However,
I can tell exactly
where they stood,
nearly one by one.
Supplanted by roads,
pylons, and warehouses,
their presence
still permeates my visions.
Tidy fields—
perfectly flat
and harmoniously arranged,
once giants to my eyes—
resist,
although the older I get
the smaller they appear.
Till they disappear.
Everything looks different—
banks and ditches,
huts and hideouts,
the little farms
in the middle of nowhere—
and yet, in a way,
they all are today
as they used to be
when the steam locomotive
clattered by.
The river seems not
to have aged a day.
The sky narrates
the same story as decades ago.
And the secret footpath
through the riverside wood
is still there,
no longer visible but trodden
more than ever before.

Alessio Zanelli

Run’s End

One day I’ll cease to run. I hope.
I could return where it began—
no body cult, no mental dope,
but leisure walks, an aging man.

I’d find the time to see the land,
whatever shows in front, beside.
I’d always have the sky at hand,
enjoy my shadow, hit my stride.

No stopwatch on my scrawny wrist,
enough of that, I’d trust the sun.
And if restrained, I’d just insist—
no roads to strive along, but fun.

However near or far, that date,
I feel already primed, secure.
And should the final call be late,
I’d send away for it. For sure.

Alessio Zanelli

The Shell

The sea after the rain was bluer,
the beach, once dried, whiter.
I remember my first shell—
small, oddly-shaped, chipped,
a treasure, mine and no one else’s,
the other children mocking me for it.
Mom had told me to clean it,
brushing and rinsing it
under running water,
to then secure it in a wooden box.
That’s where it stayed for years,
till when, I really don’t know.
I never lost the shell though—
I just mislaid the box.
And now, after the rain,
on the foreshore on my own,
both the sea and the beach
appear nothing more than gray.

Alessio Zanelli