On occasion, for different reasons and with regard to different persons, Rebecca and I have become aware of illnesses that beset the people in Spoleto we know.

The knowledge establishes a peculiar connection between us and this place: by no means intimate yet, the attachment grows closer with each new filament.

Like today, sadly we are told the reason for the sudden absence of Benito, our next-door neighbor to whom we hardly ever spoke except in passing.

Somewhere in town a notice will be posted in memoriam, while the service set for Monday is too sacred for our feeble salutations to intrude.

One night on the terrazzo, then, we will raise a flute of spirits to the poliziotto, remembering his rye smile at a mistimed buon giorno.

Books have yet to learn the means to record the audiovisual.
So you must try to imagine the town officials and lone vet
Standing at attention to the plaintive sound of the trumpet.
Else a silent image stands still to commemorate the original.

Even in Storia Postale di Spoleto, the companion
Guide to today’s exhibition oddly given in French,
I run into the best picture yet of our destination:

Nothing like our Golden Arches, the silent stones
Down through the centuries unfold a fascination.