UNFOLDING SPACE Poem by Aldo Nove

The place where we are is not this one,
equipped with all kinds of comfort,
distant. It's never been
elsewhere, it's neither here, nor now. It's not a place.
And incessantly
it flows, heavily, you can feel it
as though coming from the inside
but which inside
it's so strong, it screeches, it dies, and dies again,
it turns on one side, it tunes in,
finds identities in the flow
but doesn't distinguish them, doesn't find them,
it doesn't tune in. It gets up, walks
around the room,
draws the margins
in its mind, outside the room there are others,
in each one of them, someone goes into the mountains,
he sees the sea, checks the time
but there is no more time, doesn't see the sea,
it just
seemed
so strong and here it comes,
the slope of the mountains
declines,
the direct opposite,
misleading,
men crowding. It sits in the centre,
there is no more
present, no more
places.