Cold Nose Two

I know it’s cold so don’t even try

to poke my nose outside.

I lie in bed

waiting for my son

to finish whatever he is doing

at the computer

since he must help me to put on my brace.

Thoughts begin to swirl around my head.

I should really get up but I can’t yet do it on my own.

I have grown old.

That’s not a word I like

but at a certain point I must be realistic.

And I guess I am no longer young.

My bones have given way.

My teeth no longer do what they should.

I envision myself years ago

walking the ring road around the cliff,

blithely. But now?

For whatever I do I need a helping hand.

Or I should say a contraption called a walker.

True, I’m not alone.

Many of my friends, all younger,

are also in need of aids.

What remains with me

are what I call the intangibles,

all of which of inestimable value.

They are my life, without them I would be nothing.

The love of children. Of friends.

I’m lucky and my mind has remained more or less intact.

Moves slower than it used to but it hasn’t yet deserted me.

Then there is the world around me.

Intangibles. Some are objects.

Each containing a store of memories.

Even the cushions on the chairs all have their stories.

A green flower brocade was once a left-over fabric sample.

Gualverio, who fashioned witty animals in wood,

gave me several from his interior decoration business.

Then there’s the armchair I bought

when my second son was born

and needed a comfortable place

to sit when I nursed him.

That is also where I slept one night

when I had a stiff neck so severe I could hardly move.

Chairs make me think of Alfonso De Gasperin.

Certainly not an Umbrian name. Indeed from Friuli.

He would roam the hills with the tools of his trade

and make chairs. No two alike. Simple with straw seats.

People loved these rustic chairs.

A handsome guy, he also made a pass at me

after my husband had died.

It was in the vegetable garden

and I think he had made more than simply a pass at my aunt

who was visiting from the States.

As a carpenter he worked on the spiral staircase in the villa.

The set of drawers he made will always bear his mark.

No two were the same size.

Whoever comes to live here now

will see them simply as misfitted drawers

when trying to put them back in

after removing them to shake out the dust.

Every object has its story.

The silk scarf with red poppies I now use as screen

for the window that looks out on the corridor.

It was bought in the Met in NY

when I was helping Clemson with its year-abroad program.

Had spent a month helping rewrite Borromini’s rules for building churches.

The poor women worshipper didn’t even have

proper benches on which to sit.

Not like the men.

Forget now which year it was.

The long Chinese flower painting

– I always wonder what the calligraphy says – had been purchased by my husband

when what he really needed

had been a winter coat.

Tangible objects alluding to intangibles.

The paper cut-out of a sailing ship.

The poem attached said:

There are good ships

and wood ships,

ships that that sail the sea.

But the best ships are friendships ………

How true!

The two terra cotta figurines of participants

in the Corpus Christi procession

with their long medieval velvet robes.

The woman who made them

suddenly died while on vacation with her children in Sicily.

Her heart-broken husband came and asked

me to return the ducks and the figure of Christ she had made for my shop.



Then there are those purely intangible objects reminding me

of what I once could and can no longer do.

I could once draw and write.

At least I can still read.

I can delve deep in my mind and remember.

As long as I can remember I feel I am still alive.

But then I start worrying about whether I have taken this pill or that,

or have paid the electric bill.

Better to go back and unlock some of my other memories.

An inexhaustible store,

memories that are never alone.

Almost all go back to before most of those I now know were even born.

Some I would rather forget

but they are too indelibly connected to others

in the daily tick-tock of the days.



Yes, I call out, please help me put on my brace.

Bring me back into the present.

What happened yesterday

is part of what happened today

or the day before.

And I would rather think of when

I could make strawberry shortcake

or walk to the baker up the street

where he was roasting his pig

with garlic and fennel.



And think of my children and my friends.