Il ritorno di Giuseppe [English translation]

1

Since sunset, stars galore

are contending for the sky;

lights that are meticulous

in teaching you the night.

An evenly-paced donkey,

companion in your return,

beats the distance

as the day is dying.

In your eyes, the desert,

a stretch of sawdust,

minuscule fragments

of the toil of nature.

The men of the sand

have killers’ profiles,

locked inside the silence

of a borderless prison.

Smell of Jerusalem,

your hand strokes the shape

of a thin doll

carved in wood.

‟You’ll dress it, Mary,

you’ll go back to those games

you left when you were

just a few years old.”

And she flew in your arms

like a swallow,

and her fingers, like teardrops,

from your eyelashes to your throat,

they prompted on your face

which used to be unknown

the tenderness of a smile,

of an affection almost begged for.

And the astonishment in your eyes

rose from your hands

which, empty around her shoulders,

around her hips filled

with the clear shape

of a recent life,

of that secret that unveils

when the womb rises.

And to you, who were looking for the reason

of a deceit unexpressed by her face,

she proposed the anxious memory

among what was left of a huddled up dream.

1. Joseph married the young Mary and left immediately afterwards.

He is now returning to Jerusalem after four years, guided by the stars, and he’s bringing a wooden doll as a gift for his young wife.

However, Mary is no longer a little girl; she is pregnant now, and greets Joseph almost begging him not to be angry about her condition. He is bewildered, and she recounts her dream to explain why she’s pregnant.

• Artist:Fabrizio De André
• Album:La buona novella (1970)