Italy
(Inspired by Dun Aengus by David Whyte)
And when you go, try to go before the ‘season’
when tourists fill every place. They take the soul of
place away.
See Italy as its people have, from
centuries ago to the present. Join them with
colorful pottery pitchers of wine on each table alongside
baskets of bread yet warm, with the scent of hot oven-baking
still floating out from the kitchen to your table to your nose to whet
your appetite.
Walk the narrow cobbled streets
where the clatter of horses’ hooves fill
your ears even though that time is a long way
passed. Throw open the casement window in your
castle bedroom to sweep your eyes over the clay tiled
roofs to the mountains in the distance. The mountains that
pierce the clouds as you do, driving down the mountain, the
road carrying you through the cloud slowly so the experience lays
on your shoulders and imbeds itself into your pores and your mouth and
your brain.
Soak in sounds of the squeeze-box;
a strolling soprano sings with all his being
as you stroll along the canals of Venice holding
hands most sensuously not ignoring strangers, but
saving them for the trattoria, where everyone shares a
moment or an announced event and they will cheer your
good news.
Drink in the crisp, clear water
spouting out of the mountain, like
champagne surging from a wedding fountain.
Place a small offering in the roadside box with the
Madonna on it, even though you aren’t Catholic, never will be
and don’t believe in all that stuff. Do it anyway. Be Italian while
you’re here.
Drive along the Costera Azura
not falling off the mountain into the
azure blue water like you expect to do
at the next sharp turn where you meet a bus
coming the other way. Italians have been driving
this road for centuries and do fall off crashing onto the
rocks below, but you won’t. You’ll have too much to take
home and to hold onto when there are only memories to make
you smile with that inner glow that you once lived with a joyful heart
in Italy. Arlene S. Bice, © 2008
