PRIMO MAGGIO
A Paola Clemente

Thank you, dear Poet and Editor, Agron Shele, for publishing my poem dedicated to the dead in the workplace on this 1st of May, a special Labor Celebration Day in Italy and in many countries in the world. Remembering Paola Clemente who died of work, died of fatigue
Jul 13, 2022 – On July 13, 2015, Paola Clemente, a laborer employed in the milleranding of grapes, died in Andria. A woman, a wife …

Fatiche crudeli e bestiali
t’han dato i nuovi tiranni,
dei campi padroni d’affanni.
La vita cedesti ai soprusi
di gente incline agli abusi
aiutati dai caporioni.
Non s’odon più canti
al mattino nei campi.
Si levano solo i lamenti
di sventurati migranti
e di gente locale
che per un tozzo di pane
muoiono di patimenti.
Non c’è giustizia,
né Dio né pianto
a ridarti la vita,
ma solo mestizia
e il coraggio di pochi
a levare in alto il grido:
"Basta!” ai caporioni,
che son del caporalato
un esercito di sfruttatori.
Il vile silenzio
ha la voce dei vinti
a svender la vita forzati
in cambio di scarso denaro,
al loro lavoro, sottratto.
Non è ammessa reazione,
nemmeno per tragica fine:
di vita o di morte
ci si fa una ragione.
Ecco la disperazione
di Paola morta di stenti,
che vive tuttora nei cuori
di noi spettatori impotenti
a levar schiavi moderni
dai campi ora prigioni.
***
Dedicated to the dead in the workplace.
To the Italian worker Paola Clemente
Cruel and bestial labor
the new tyrants gave you,
of the field's masters of troubles.
Life gave in to abuses
of men without souls
aided by the bosses.
No more songs are heard
in the morning in the fields.
Only the moans go up
of unfortunate migrants
and of local people
who, for a loaf of bread,
die of suffering.
There is no justice
neither God nor crying
to give you back your life,
but only sadness
and the courage of a few
to raise the cry:
"Stop it!" to the ringleaders
belonging to gangs of exploiters.
The cowardly silence
has the voice of the vanquished
to sell out the forced life
in exchange for meager money,
to their underpaid work.
No reaction is allowed
not even for a tragic end:
of life or death
we get a reason.
Here is the desperation
of Paola who died of starvation:
she still lives in the hearts
of us, helpless spectators,
to take away modern slaves
from the fields now prisons.
Written and translated by @Franca Colozzo