Il Vecchio E Il Bambino - Francesco Guccini

Un vecchio e un bambino si preser per mano

E andarono insieme incontro alla sera.

La polvere rossa si alzava lontano

E tutto brillava di luce non vera.

L’immensa pianura sembrava arrivare

Fin dove l’occhio di un uomo poteva guardare,

E tutto d’intorno non c’era nessuno

Solo il tetro contorno di torri di fumo.

I due camminavano, il giorno cadeva

Il vecchio parlava e piano piangeva.

Con l’anima assente, con gli occhi bagnati

Seguiva il ricordo di miti passati.

I vecchi subiscon le ingiurie degli anni

Non sanno distinguere il vero dai sogni,

I vecchi non sanno, nel loro pensiero

Distinguer nei sogni il falso dal vero.

E il vecchio diceva, guardando lontano,

''Immagina questo coperto di grano,

Immagina i frutti, immagina i fiori

E pensa alle voci e pensa ai colori.

E in questa pianura fin dove si perde

Crescevano gli alberi e tutto era verde,

Cadeva la pioggia, segnavano i soli

Il ritmo dell’uomo e delle stagioni.''

Il bimbo ristette, lo sguardo era triste,

E gli occhi guardavano cose mai viste,

E poi disse al vecchio con voce sognante

''Mi piaccion le fiabe, raccontane altre

An old man and a child held hands

And they went together to meet in the evening.

The red dust rose away

And everything shone with untrue light.

The immense plain seemed to arrive

As far as a man's eye could see,

And all around there was nobody

Just the bleak outline of smoke towers.

The two walked, the day was falling

The old man spoke and cried softly.

With an absent soul, with wet eyes

The memory of past myths followed.

The old suffer the ravages of the years

They can't tell truth from dreams,

The old people don't know, in their thinking

Distinguish false from true in dreams.

And the old man said, looking away,

'' Imagine this covered in grain,

Imagine the fruits, imagine the flowers

And he thinks of the voices and thinks of the colors.

And in this plain as far as it gets lost

The trees grew and everything was green,

The rain was falling, the suns marked

The rhythm of man and the seasons. ''

The child stood still, the look was sad,

And his eyes looked at things never seen before,

And then he said to the old man in a dreamy voice

'' I like fairy tales, tell others