Taking a Crack at This

Sunday morning, outside the art museum:

crepa = crack, a sight we saw last year after the earthquakes (terromoti)

Quando l’arte cuce le ferite = when art stitching wounds

intervento = intervention

momentanemente = momentary

permanente = permanent

When art heals wounds
Or, a momentarily permanent intervention

AKA, my Italian lessons start tomorrow in earnest. (And my WordPress refresher course, one that recalls the instructions for internal links, should take you back to last year’s tale before long. Click here. BTW, O ye of little faith, my HTML is much better than my Italian, as evidenced by today’s most recent performances.)

Earthquake Damage?

Rhymes with Essere (to be; exist)?

Ettere (a first name, its spelling most likely botched)
Has an organic family farm and a daughter, I thought,
Who is studying agriculture at the university in Perugia.

He hopes (against many reasons he has to fear) that she
Will stick it out, and thereby forsaking all others (you see)
Finally come to take over the farm, pass on the inheritance.

How well she fits into his dream never got past my Italian.
So much of the rest, without a doubt, was lost in translation.
Only the land, rich in famiglia and dear to this man, remains.

To Addictions

In truth, the obsession here: our Italian lessons.

Wild Asparagus

Thinner. Crisper. Earthier.

Best showcased raw or briefly cooked.

Tried it both ways. Tonight, raw, in a salad.

According to the site I read, “Wild asparagus grows elusively in nature.”

The way I first took it (I thought, redundantly), the odd word out was ‘exclusively.’

Coming Into Bloom

Strolling round La Rocca
We take in the sights.

All Signs Don’t Point One Way

The first of many reasons I am loathe to drive in Italy:

Signs would appear to say, cycling path junction ahead: Assisi to Spoleto; Spoleto to Norcia.

No bicycles allowed.

Pronto

The Italian greeting when the phone rings:

The More, the Merrier

With each invitation, each gathering,
At Nove Centro, our circle ever widens.

Not that we have yet encountered anyone
Often enough to secure a firm connection.

Nor that those like us, of advancing age,
Have tools to pierce the Babel of tongues.

It’s just a sense, apart from any God-given,
Of a wider world and a growing affection.