Late one afternoon in October
I hear them for the first time：
loud-voiced palavering， whistles， murmurs1，
quarrels， bickering2 and warbling， croaking3 and chatter4
in the high plane trees of the street.
The leaves are all turning yellow this time of year，
causing huge yellow sunlit rooms
to appear at the level of the fifth and sixth floors
opposite the barracks， where the tram turns off
from the Via delle Milizie.
Solid branches， twigs5， and perches6：
every bit of space is taken up in this parliament of starlings！
They are tightly bunched together there among the leaves；
and the hundreds of thousands of starlings
that perform their flying exercises
against the backdrop of the evening's mass of motionless cloud
will surely soon have lost their places：
there are myriads7 of swarming9 punctuation10 marks out there，
starlings flying in formation，
sudden sharp turns， steep ascents11，
swarm8 on delightful12 swarm
against a rosy13 cloud bank in the east.
The October evening is cool.
The shop windows of the Via Ottaviano are shining.
And the starlings are chattering14， quarreling and laughing，
whispering and quietly enjoying themselves， when suddenly
a blustering15 as of ten thousand pairs of sharp-edged scissors
passes through the republic of the plains
it is as though an alarm had sounded，
heard as an echo over the muffled16 traffic.
Soon the darkness of night will fall.
But the starlings up there won't sTOP talking，
they move together， push one another， chatter and flit.
Virgil must have had them in mind when somewhere he likens
the souls of the deceased to flights of birds
which toward sundown
abandon the mountains and gather in high trees.
I seem to be standing17 in an Underworld
in the midst of a swarm of birds.
The block is Virgilian； the street is crossed
by the Viale Giulio Cesare，
where you lived
for some time before you died.
That's why I am sTOPping here.
The souls of the dead have gathered in the trees.
Their number is incredible， suddenly it seems ghastly；
is this what it will be like？
For a moment I am a prisoner
of the poem I am writing.
There must be an exit.
The soldier coming up to me
has noticed that I have been standing
for quite some time looking up into the foliage
into the darkness of feathers， bird's eyes， and beaks18.
The peasant boy inside him apprises19 me
of the fact that starlings come in vast migrations20
from Poland and Russia
to spend the winter in the south：
And things go very well for them！
In the daytime they fly out to the countryside
and spend the night in here，
he explains with great amu百度竞价推广ent， turning his gaze
up toward the swarm of birds. Their anxiety seems to have ceased；
in just a moment they all seem to have fallen asleep.
only single chirps21 and clucks are heard
from starlings talking in their sleep.
What are they dreaming of？ Ten thousand starlings are dreaming in the
darkness
about the sunlight over the fields.
As for myself， I am thinking of the tranquility
in certain restaurants in the countryside，
in the Albano Mountains and on the Campagna
the tranquility at noon on a sunny day in October.
I am filled with the clarity of the fall day.
And am touched by something immeasurable， transparent22，
which I cannot describe at first
but must be everything we never said to each other.
There are so many things I'd like to say.
How shall I be able to speak？
Today you are not shade， you are light.
And in the poem I am writing you will be my guest.
We are going to talk about Digens Akrtas，
the Byzantine heroic poem
with the strangely compelling rhythm；
and since the manuscript of the poem
is preserved in the monastery23 at Grottaferrata
I shall order wine from Grottaferrata，
golden and shimmering24 in its carafe25；
we shall talk about the miraculously26 translucent27 autumn poem by Petronius
which appears first in Ekel？f's Elective Affinities28；
and about Ekel？f's poems， to which you devoted29 such attention.
Did Ekel？f ever come to Grottaferrata？
I seem to detect your lively gaze.
And we shall see how the starlings come flying
across the fields in teeming30 swarms31.
They will come from Rome and spend the day out here
where they will eat snails32， worms， and seeds
and suddenly they will fly up from a field
as at a given signal
and make us look into the sun.
