September 2016
Frederick Feirstein
feirstein2@aol.com
feirstein2@aol.com
Gravedona is on the way from Lake Como to St. Moritz. My first inkling of what the internet can do was when I received a letter from Italy written by a man who somehow found this poem on what I jokingly would call the interweb. He said he found this poem and wanted me to know his mother had just died. He sent a picture and invited us to stay with him should we come to the Italian Lakes again. All but two of my books are out of print. But "Gravedona" can be found in volume XXXIV(1995) of the Quarterly Review Of Literature's Poetry Series, having won QRL's International Prize. 5000 books with five poets in this issue had been sold internationally as was common for QRL in the good old days.
Gravedona
Lost in Gravedona without a map,
You ask directions in handicap
Italian of a stout old woman.
She laughs, “Stop struggling, come in,
And whilst I think them out, I’ll make us tea
And, if you don’t mind, have a chat with me,
For I’m half-Welsh, half-Genovese.”
Her father built this house, planted trees
“That will outlive this century. I’ll bore
You, maybe, nattering about the war.
I need to take the rust off of me tongue,
Living as I do among young
People who take up German. Whoosh, it makes me boil,
Me who dieted on castor oil.
So;" she smacks her stomach, “me bag is packed,
Time’s refugee, ready to be attacked.”
She waddles to the kitchen to make tea.
You ease into her affability,
Scanning her knickknacks, cheap paperbacks
(Charles and Di), miniature Union Jacks,
Photos of The Pieta, her son:
No, her husband, arms crossed with a gun,
“That’s right, like me he was a Partisan
Hid in these hills. They tortured him, poor man,
When a spy, born in this town, gave him up.”
She pours the tea, then hot milk in my cup.
She spots the admiration in my eyes.
Pettiness survives, heroism dies.
Isn’t that so in The States?”
“Sure,
We’ve lost our confidence with our naiveté.
We’ve given up what Hitler couldn’t take."
Grinning she slices a home-baked cake.
“During the war, fat me was the head
Of the Resistance here. I baked the bread,
I bought the boots .. Yes, in Dongo, I
Helped capture Mussolini. Heels to sky
He hung, a creature out of Dante’s Hell.
I’ll die with many stories I could tell.
Unlike you, young people here don’t care
About the blood and terror in the square
They drink their coffee in. It’s only we
Who are afflicted with this history.
Hitler, Goebbels, Goering – facts and names,
Heroes now in children’s video games.
Just Once Upon A Time And Long Ago.”
Her eyes begin to close. It’s time to go.
“Tea finished already? You’ll want your map.
I’ve traced it. Seems I can’t resist me nap,
Journeying to a better world I knew.
You’ve not too far to go. Here’s luck to you.”
She clicks her cup against my empty cup.
“Hail and farewell,” she grins, “and bottoms up.”
You ask directions in handicap
Italian of a stout old woman.
She laughs, “Stop struggling, come in,
And whilst I think them out, I’ll make us tea
And, if you don’t mind, have a chat with me,
For I’m half-Welsh, half-Genovese.”
Her father built this house, planted trees
“That will outlive this century. I’ll bore
You, maybe, nattering about the war.
I need to take the rust off of me tongue,
Living as I do among young
People who take up German. Whoosh, it makes me boil,
Me who dieted on castor oil.
So;" she smacks her stomach, “me bag is packed,
Time’s refugee, ready to be attacked.”
She waddles to the kitchen to make tea.
You ease into her affability,
Scanning her knickknacks, cheap paperbacks
(Charles and Di), miniature Union Jacks,
Photos of The Pieta, her son:
No, her husband, arms crossed with a gun,
“That’s right, like me he was a Partisan
Hid in these hills. They tortured him, poor man,
When a spy, born in this town, gave him up.”
She pours the tea, then hot milk in my cup.
She spots the admiration in my eyes.
Pettiness survives, heroism dies.
Isn’t that so in The States?”
“Sure,
We’ve lost our confidence with our naiveté.
We’ve given up what Hitler couldn’t take."
Grinning she slices a home-baked cake.
“During the war, fat me was the head
Of the Resistance here. I baked the bread,
I bought the boots .. Yes, in Dongo, I
Helped capture Mussolini. Heels to sky
He hung, a creature out of Dante’s Hell.
I’ll die with many stories I could tell.
Unlike you, young people here don’t care
About the blood and terror in the square
They drink their coffee in. It’s only we
Who are afflicted with this history.
Hitler, Goebbels, Goering – facts and names,
Heroes now in children’s video games.
Just Once Upon A Time And Long Ago.”
Her eyes begin to close. It’s time to go.
“Tea finished already? You’ll want your map.
I’ve traced it. Seems I can’t resist me nap,
Journeying to a better world I knew.
You’ve not too far to go. Here’s luck to you.”
She clicks her cup against my empty cup.
“Hail and farewell,” she grins, “and bottoms up.”
from Ending The Twentieth Century (QRL, l995)
©2016 Frederick Feirstein
©2016 Frederick Feirstein
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