A few weeks ago, a friend and I were leisurely walking the cobblestoned streets of my town, talking of this and that. At a certain point, our discussion turned to love and loss. “After a loss,” I said, “one has to sort of reinvent oneself. Find out who one is.” You looked at me andContinue reading “In The End We Are Alone”
Category Archives: Poems
A Bouquet of Summer
Someone left a bouquet of field flowers by my door. Flowers picked along a country lane. Years ago, my granddaughter picked a fistful of English daisies that insisted on growing on the lawn. They were not weeds for me, and for a day they smiled at me from the glass where I had put them.Continue reading “A Bouquet of Summer”
The Town Walker
Visitors to Orvieto walk the streets and wonder why there are so many signs telling passersby to move from one to the other sidewalk (if there is one). Sudden indications of a one-way street, leave the visitors unsure in which direction to turn their car and whether they can get around the upcoming corner. Really,Continue reading “The Town Walker”
A Poet
One who seeks an answer to the eternal why of life. One who loves words and the sound of words, the meaning and the structure, the way in which they inter-relate, attempting with words to build something finite where nothing can be added and nothing can be subtracted. But what then are words? They areContinue reading “A Poet”
Final
A photo. One of many in my computer files. Past, present and future. Like all photos but some more than others. Two people, friends, in front of a house. The house is gone but while the friends have aged, they and their scarfs are still around. It’s Christmas. There’s a wreath on the door. TheContinue reading “Final”
More Thoughts: Seven
At times I do get into philosophical thought. While I’m not into philosophers, occasionally something does make me think more deeply. When I was at NYU, we were told to write an essay about our philosophy of life – I remember thinking – but do I even have a philosophy of life? Perhaps that wasContinue reading “More Thoughts: Seven”
More Thoughts: Six
The importance of memory. I’m not sure where I read this piece by Borges. Knowing that the author was blind, made it particularly poignant. While it didn’t apply directly to me, I now realize how, as we age, memory will be our life. Borges – L’Artefice “He (Hector) had never lingered over the pleasures ofContinue reading “More Thoughts: Six”
More Thoughts: Five
Then there was the guard at MOMA where I worked as a student when I was attending NYU. Before becoming secretary to Monroe Wheeler, my job was basically simple – working in the ticket booth or selling books. That didn’t stop me from looking at the paintings whenever I could, or looking down from the rooftopContinue reading “More Thoughts: Five”
More Thoughts: Four
Since Augustine did not become a saint till later in life, this may very well be by him. Dancing with your whole body and mind is after all surrendering yourself to life. I’m not sure, though, whether his mother, Monica, would have approved. I would have left the angels nonplussed, for I never really learnedContinue reading “More Thoughts: Four”
Second Thoughts on Starting Anew
Once upon a time, say 20 years ago. When did it all begin? –and I don’t mean the eclipse. I mean when your life turns from being only what you plan and starts to include a dependence on what others think you should or shouldn’t do. Yesterday it was you who was boss, now graduallyContinue reading “Second Thoughts on Starting Anew”
Arches
Once upon a time there were small towns where the buildings, the people, communicated with each other. But this is after all Italy where even now one lives surrounded by the past. Stairs used to be outside – now they are almost all inside. Houses still touch each other as they march along the street,Continue reading “Arches”
Doors — Who Knows
You never know what lies behind a door. That’s the point. A door may conceal what was never meant to be seen. The odds and ends, the remnants, of some magnum opus. The mundane residue of what once was grand. An open door may suddenly reveal three levels of brick arches, piggyback one on theContinue reading “Doors — Who Knows”
There Are Doors and There Are Gates
A door is just a door. A gate is something more. Concealing. Revealing. Separating in from out. A door might be humble or it might be ostentatious, A gate may be one or occasionally the other. Doors are shut, enigmatic, attempts to keep us out. Gates welcome February snows or burning summer sun. When facedContinue reading “There Are Doors and There Are Gates”
Fire and Trees
Overnight it had gotten cold. No, it hadn’t snowed although some years it had. It was time to get up – one couldn’t stay in bed all day. She pulled out the first sweat suit she could lay her hands on. Not that she used it for jogging but just to keep warm while theContinue reading “Fire and Trees”
The Last Rose
It was the last rose. The deep red blossom had not opened all the way or perhaps had no intention of opening. Still I found it beautiful. That was weeks ago. Even now the rose sits there in its vase. The petals brown and withered. Yet even so I find it beautiful. Not simply theContinue reading “The Last Rose”
Walk Down Tamburino
While from my house, I could once walk on my own two legs down that cobblestone road called Tamburino, immortalized in Brockedon’s early 19th-century guide, with a view of the town in the distance, these days I need three, as in the sphinx’s riddle. But since even that, as things go now, has become tooContinue reading “Walk Down Tamburino”
Journey Through Memory
She sat alone in the front seat of the car as it moved swiftly through the hills, oblivious to the chatter around her which she could barely hear. It was night. The moon was playing hide and seek with the clouds. Turner and his moonscapes came to mind. Tall ghostly grasses heavy with seed pods,Continue reading “Journey Through Memory”
Memory Two
1980s We all have memories. Our lives are basically memories of what we did yesterday, creating new memories for tomorrow. How little we know, of others, or ourselves. We may think we know, but do we? The world we have lived in. The people we have known. How we interacted. We can look back atContinue reading “Memory Two”
Memory One
One of the most moving accounts of the past and memories is Tony Judt’s Memory Chalet. Succumbing to Lou Gherig’s disease, he gradually could live only within himself, within his memory. There he could relive the story of his life, a life that had moved through space and time, now captured in those countless roomsContinue reading “Memory One”
The Voice of the Violin
Camilleri. Thanks to Camilleri, his police inspector Montalbano and the small Sicilian town of Vigàta have become what might be called household words. Albeit the town so familiar to the devotees of the mystery series shown on television is a collage of various Sicilian towns, there is no real town by that name. Although CamilleriContinue reading “The Voice of the Violin”
Erika Bizzarri 