Eugenio Montale, Collected Poems 1920-1954 translated from the Italian by Jonathan Galassi (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1998).
From Cuttlefish Bones:
What you knew of me
was only a coat of paint,
the veil that clothes
our human fate.
And maybe behind the canvas
Was the still blue;
only a seal kept out
the limpid sky.
Or else it was the fiery
change in me,
revealing a burning ember
I’ll never see.
So that his husk became
my true substance;
the fire that isn’t quenched
for me was called: ignorance.
If you see a shadow
it’s no shadow—it’s me.
If only I could tear it off
and offer it to you.
