Category Archives: Poems

Must have been 1956 or 1957. I was working at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and since I had spent a year in Italy it was somehow taken for granted that I was proficient in Italian. When a request came for someone to translate the Italian entries for the International Literary BrailleContinue reading “First Translation”

Well maybe Use with joy. A brightly colored sticker on, of all things, a waste paper or trash container. In today’s world of too much of everything, we have containers for plastic, for glass, for organic, for paper, for just plain trash. It’s one way of trying to save the environment and is amazing howContinue reading “Use with Joy”

Bare branches. Bare barren branches one would think. Winter clouds hang low build up release their burdens unwanted on the earth. Gray dropsical clouds. Bare winter branches. No hint of spring. Then, suddenly, near the garden gate a cloud of fragrance Looking up, the branches are no longer bare. Calycanthos. Winter flowering. Sweeter than theContinue reading “Calycanthus”

When one is what a friend of mine calls a wordsmith, one begins to question interpretations of a word, whether one’s own or that of others. I don’t consider myself an author, and have never written a novel, but having grown up in one, or even two, languages, and having lived most of my adultContinue reading “Montale, and unexpectedly James Joyce”

ORVIETO (excerpt from Magica Etruria, Orvieto and Perugia, Nuova Immagine Editrice, Siena, 2014, reprint of Magica Etruria, Bizzarri and Curri, 1968)  (After visiting the necropolis of Crocifisso del Tufo, Mario Bizzarri approaches the question of what the Etruscans of Orvieto were physically like. But first, he says, pay a visit to the museums in theContinue reading ““Orvieto” from “Magica Etruria””

Late night walk with Teah It’s quiet out. The ticking of my shoes.                                                                                                           The soft tapping of my cane. Certainly not Long John Silver’s cane, or was it his wooden leg? Occasional voices, but always around the corner, no one in sight. It may be someone talking to themselves – or more likely on theirContinue reading “Observing Teah”

By Erika’s granddaughter Costanza, age 10, 2008 She sits in the sun and licks one paw, stopping only to listen to the birds and the squeak of the pencil.  She looks at Panza, the other cat, incredulous and sort of like a “boss”, who makes believe he is sure of himself and fierce. Now sheContinue reading “Observing Brutus”

A friendship that, in 1993, began thirty-five years earlier and which was to continue, in 1993, for almost another thirty years. June 27, 1993 Dear friend – words we use the way we say good morning, or how are you. But words that with you take on their truest meaning. How many are the friendsContinue reading “To a Dear Friend”

The valley that I see each day, as I walk along the edge of the cliff, is as it always is. Fields, olive groves, hedgerows of hawthorne waiting for the spring to burst into billows of white, rows of dark cypresses pointing to the sky, a house here and there along a winding country road.Continue reading “Missing”

July 4, 1993 Up in the corner – window, doorway, wall – sits the spider, waiting, in his web. Outside, on the bench, I sit, waiting, for someone, friend or stranger, to come along. A plop on the cobbles, it’s not what I thought – no birds, but just a branch above, and then suddenlyContinue reading “Waiting”

FOR MARIO BIZZARRI, archeologist in love with his profession and with Perugia and Orvieto, where he grew up and then spent his life becoming acquainted with his Etruscan forebears. He was born on March 30, 1914, and died January 30, 1969, in Orvieto.   HYPOGEUM DEI VOLUMNI (PERUGIA) and ORVIETO (Excerpts from Magica Etruria, Orvieto and Perugia, NuovaContinue reading “Mario’s Essay on Perugia”

Oct. 19, 1944 The wind rattles at the window panes and the branches of the trees sway from side to side. The leaves are twirled in the wild merry-go-round of the wind until they sink to rest on the earth. A fresh gust brings more leaves and these mingle with the others in a whirlingContinue reading “Leaves”

Australia to Orvieto to Australia, via Libia and Sweden. There was once a ruin (once a farm house) on a hill overlooking the valley. The stones had long decided to go their own way and creatures of various kinds had taken up their abode in cracks and overhanging shelters. Neither four-footed animal nor Christian cameContinue reading “Come and Gone”

On the Advantages and Disadvantages of Having a Sister Sept. 19, 1944 I have a sister. She, in my opinion, is usually a spoiled brat. But that is only my opinion. Being the youngest of the family, she is naturally rather spoiled. How I wish that she were an angelic, helpful sister! But she isn’tContinue reading “Sisters”

So All Good Wishes For a Peaceful Christmas and Promises of a Better 2022, from all of us in Orvieto, whether just temporarily here for the Holidays or thinking of the future, from Costanza, Claudio and Lamberto and his five cats and, of course, from me and Teah, the dog. And so, with visions ofContinue reading “Christmas Greetings”

Now that I’m 92 and don’t have other responsibilities, I start wondering what Christmas meant to me when I was a child, what it meant to my children and to my grandchild. Questions arise as to what Christmas really was for my Jewish friends (it is only recently that I learned about Hanukkah), to othersContinue reading “Christmas”

I lie in bed. Night has settled in. Taken over. Darkness flows into all corners, laps all objects in its embrace. I lie there. A web of words, whispering, wailing,  insinuates itself into my conscious, my unconscious as I wait for sleep. I look at my clock. Luminescent numbers say it is two. I wait.Continue reading “Two O’Clock”

Four photos: Revelations 1. Hemlock grove. Sun filtering through the towering trees. Danae, child of the earth, stands there alone, arms raised in adoration, welcoming this unearthly shower of gold. 2. It is still dark as he makes his way to the top of a mountain, with the sea down below. The air is coldContinue reading “Revelations”

A chair is made to be sat in. A chair presupposes a sitter. Straight-backed, enveloping, soft or hard, a chair has a personality all its own. That may or may not be that of its sitter. Chairs also sit and wait lined up against the wall or grouped around a table, anticipating a sitter. ScatteredContinue reading “Chairs Poem”

Chairs. Can you imagine your house without chairs? A seat, with a back, generally meant for one person. A chair must have been one of the first things our Stone Age ancestors invented. Or let us say found useful. Perhaps just a boulder. Or a tree stump. Just something they could sit on. To beginContinue reading “Chairs”