What metaphors are used in Variations on Nothing by Giuseppe Ungaretti?

Hermeticism is generally defined as intentional obscurity in modern poetry, meaning that the poet chooses private or esoteric symbols to represent a subject, rather than logical or direct expression of it. Hermetic poetry grew out of the French symbolist movement of the late nineteenth century, the most noted members of which included Charles Baudelaire, Paul Verlaine, and Arthur Rimbaud. Symbolists expressed the immediate sensations of human experience through subtle, suggestive, and highly metaphorical language, in the form of symbols. This style was a revolt against the realistic and naturalistic poetry of the time and was based on a belief that reality was internal and could only be suggested, not overtly described and labeled.

Examples of hermeticism in "Variations on Nothing" include the brief but highly visual images that make up the entire poem. Sand in an hourglass is followed by the "fleeting impressions" on a pink cloud, followed in succession by a hand turning the hourglass, the pink cloud turning to silver, the human hand now in shadows, and finally the sand again sliding down the hourglass. The only complete sentence makes up the final stanza, but the first two stanzas are comprised of phrases, intentionally incomplete to retain a bit of obscurity. The enigmatic quality of the poem is enhanced by the use of seemingly incongruent imagessand, clouds, a hand, darknessand their presentation one after the other with no real connecting language. Some English translations of the poem include ellipses at the end of the first and second stanzas as though to emphasize the fact that something is missing here.