River Island
from Dante’s Purgatorio,
Canto 1, lines 100-105
Questa isoletta intorno ad imo ad imo,
là giù colà dove la batte l’onda,
porta dei giunchi sovra il molle limo:
null’altra pianta che facesse fronda
o indurasse, vi puote aver vita,
però che a le percosse non seconda.
All around this little island in its reaches low
down there where the wave is beating,
tall reeds from soft mud can grow:
no other plant can live there, bearing
leaves or hardening in its prime,
that will not bend when tides are battering.
photograph: Common Reed Phragmites australis, Old Peat Road, Drumbeg, Sutherland, December
WHEN THE GRASS DANCES 