Versi premiati di Maurice Mifsud Bonnici

LA ROCCIA DEL GENERALE

Trepide le onde marine,

Battendo fatigate il petto

Contro la Roccia quieta e robusata,

Schiumando dalla bocca la rabbia

Che da secoli tormenta il macigno,

Forte, perennio, corposo,

Duro e spinoso,

Che regge supremo indenne

Nella solitudine russando

Le notti di Dwejra

Nel muto silenzio ignoto

Riempendo l'idillico vuoto

Di sogni mai sognati,

Mai cantati,

Nascendo l'alba

Che dà posto al dì.

(Premiata seconda, Concorso Nazionale di Poesie 2010, Għaqda Poeti Maltin – Associazione Poeti Maltesi)

SAN RAFLU LAKELET

Never have I been to a place

so ethereally peaceful –

a chip from heaven ensconced

in arboreous solitude unseen,

resting supine on a glazed lakelet,

serene and contemplative –

a nook resembling heaven

secluded from the din that haunts

human activities at the expense of nature.

Never have I seen trees and water

in such a peaceful amalgam:

one giving what the other lacks –

an image of possessed beauty;

the back-drop sky releasing blue

to blend with reflected green

from trees crammed cravingly round

the sleeping edge of mirrored water.

A cloistered lake in miniature

that San Raflu hoards so jelously

in a depression of the land called Ħofra,

in which the rain finds its repose

to keep the goldfish plying

so restfully within the hold

at the sight of dragon-flies, that like

pristine midget planes patronize above

the somnolent lake against intruders.

The show will live long in my heart

so vividly as on my first sight.

(Winner of Second Prize, National Poetry Competition 2010, Għaqda Poeti Maltin – Association of Maltese Poets.)