The essay reflects on modes and functionsof the "contemporary presence of times", aspecial characteristic of Carlo Levi's writing,in particular in Cristo si è fermato a Eboli.Here, from the contrastive relationshipbetween the alien and hostile time of thehistory and the arcane and "sacred" timeof the myth, filled with a poetic truth thatin itself protects and nourishes a newanthropological humanism, the word"wavy" of Levi's prose, suspended andsought after between past and present,draws the utopian thrust of his meditativeand visionary lyricism.