Tuscany: and the lay of the land...

This is a third poem about my particular experiences in Tuscany, Italy. During the early 1990's there was a growing concern on the part of the local farmers that foreigners were gradually buying up the precious land. Tuscany had become a desired vacation destination and many of the foreigners didn't know, nor care to know, how to cultivate their properties. This writing speaks to this issue;


To The Last Contadini
(Sempre Lavoro)

"Sempre lavoro..." always work...
wakes with the rool of the rooster’s rhyme.
Stoic fissures on their faces,
reflections of the toil with terra
under a sun unrelenting.

In these supple Tuscan hills
the farmer’s skills
have culled the land, cajoled her and
cared for her. Anonymous names– blown in the wind–
Fosco... Alba...Sarafino...
have formed their plots
in olive, vineyard and grainy lots.

...As countless years before; this was the way,
to work the land, the aroma of manure,
the distant echo of a tractor, the organized
dishevelment of the working farm.

There is a smell of change
in the wind that has no season,
that knows nothing of the seasons.

Unlike any pest or virus that the contadino
can confront, this foreign intrusion is swiping
their land, not to cultivate–
but to manicure and postulate.

These sweet hills are in danger, and may
sour– turn bitter– like fruit that goes unpicked,
a rooster’s crow that no one rises to,
even become brittle;
a sunburnt tractor in an unturned, weed-choked field,
a shrine and antique to some,
in reality– a sad anacronum.

The Soil -Turner and his essential attar...

This writing again comes from my experience of living in Tuscany, Italy. I took it upon myself to work with some of the local farmer's, Fosco, Alba, and Serafino as they taught me some of the tricks to taking care of the olive and fruit trees that were on our property.These contadini worked at a tireless rate throughout the day. The writing below is one of the many things they taught me while I lived there;



The Soil-Turner

He waits, and waits... with taciturn patience,
wrought by the years of his solitary labour.
He knows the season
beyond its name and apparent beauty.
And he will wait
to commence his task,
‘til a good rain falls, and the soil is right.

Then he will set out to the olive grove,
nine rows there, of eighty trees,
as he has for years past recompense.
Nostalgia playing no part in his game.
The soil is soft now–
ready to be turned.

The zappa his tool to break
ground, round each trunk.
He thwarts the weeds that breed
at foot, and with laconic effort
lets each tree breathe,
as he breathes with heaviness.

Too old is now to see the young trees bare fruit.
Still, he knows with a contadino’s sense
this work need be done if the oil of these trees,
this precious nectar– this essential attar–
is to have the bite;
that sharp virgin taste, that marks
one has turned his soil at moment’s right.

Writing as an act of gardening...

I had the good fortune to live in Pienza, Italy from 1990-1993. I was working at a family-owned bed&breakfast in the Tuscan hillside. I began to write a collection of poems during my experience there. I have chosen this writing below because of the correlation that I find between the Tuscan farmers and the work they perform, and the act of writing;



The Work of Hand
(for Fosco, Alba and Serafino)

The difficult to let it go.
To set it down, this task of hand,
and then leave it–
to be.

As the gardino planted each primavera
that is tended to, mended to,
all summer’s long.

The contadino spreads his seeds,
creates his patterned plots,
then cleans his lines, weeds his rows.

To make the delicious from the ordinary,
he will say; there are myriad,
myriad anonymous hours that pass

alone.
In this silence, in this sound of life,
the poet, solitary– with pen and paper–

plays the part of a gardener;
honing, hoeing, honing, hoeing...
for he is the maker-responsible

solely,
for the succor in his fruits.

The imagination and Monarch butterflies...

I have always been fascinated with butterflies and the collective spirit they exude. I see them as metaphors to our imagination or ideas of spontaneity. I think of Gerald Manley Hopkins in his poem "The Windhover", and this is the writing I wish to impart;



The Monarch
(or, the imagination as a butterfly)

):( Is there such a thing
as unabashed
spontaneity?
The monarch, her arched,
almost inebriate, fragile yet
agile wings flutter
with seeming uncertainty...
She draws, climbs&glides
scooping mountainous–‘steady air below’–
without apparent care (nor despair).
Within the moment–She Is–
silent,
in winged contentment.
What possesses this splendor,
this savoir d’etre?
To be only, unspoiled,
a butterfly... ):(

Giacometti; Hands that sculpted man's gaze...

I have always been fascinated with the work of the sculptor, Alberto Giacometti. On the occasions as a young man I would go the the MOMA in New York City just to see his work specifically. There was a gauntness and bareness to his work. He seemed to illustrate the post-WWII individual that I identified with. Yet if you look at his overall work closely he was showing us the elegant and elan gaze of man;

Homage to Alberto Giacometti

He understood well
the collective
gaze.
Wrought from hands keen;
stoic forms
intimating
man made,
almost mad,
amid the haze
of post-WWII...
Emaciated lines
of humane
kind–ness.
In the
gauntness
of his work
bare
witness
the grandeur
of man;
diminutive–
humbled, hurt,
torn&worn–
he
prevails to rise
and brave morning’s
mourning, often brutal
sun.
Battered– most laic–
made thin
from far-flung
battles. Gandhi-like
staff in hand,
his objects
bespeak with grace
the elongated,
elegant&elan
gaze of man...

To timepieces and pocket watches...

I have long held a fascination for timepieces-- their precision and sublties. The sheer craftmanship alone that goes into making a single hand-made piece. The inspiration for the little writing below comes from my fondness for them;


Ode To Olde Time
(An homage to timepieces)

...as olde time, ticks and twists
and turns,
it’s thin hands tock
working ‘round the clock’
never pausing nor waiting
for us; she moves along
her prescribed path, and as she passes,
records– the seconds, the minutes,
the hours of our collective
finality.
Whose, mere, mortal hands before
have stirred this crystalline face?
Winding her ever-forward–
no remorse.
Within movements, jeweled,
only the Swiss can craft. Precision
becomes precise... A Ferris wheel
she turns, marking time,
before the circus barker
implores the moment, (to disgruntled children)
time is now come, to disembark...

When in these winter days...

There's something about the plain sense to winter that I find inspires me to write about her. As Steven's has noted about this season; we come to see the thing itself not the idea of the thing. I offer you this broadside;


Winter’s Leaves
(preface)

When winter’s wind
whistles wild-white
and December’s dank,
early, dark cold
combs all forms
in the snowman’s frost;
there is a house so still,
upon a country knoll,
inviting those who may be cold,
to come inside. Kept keen
with warmth by firelight–
rest your bones, your weary eyes...
then listen to the sound
of the wind, the self-same
sound of the land...
Inside these leaves
the gentle rustle
of firewood sparks, and we
in child-like wonder transfixed
In the glow.
Come inside, and hear a voice
mingled within the wind,
these words– like dust–
these winter leaves,
the warm house so still,
upon a country knoll.