Guest Post: August 2008 – A Memory

Nineteen years old

quit the first teaching job

and told his dad

‘money will come eventually’

Then

got on a plane which

landed after midnight

outside of Pisa

my final destination

35 km away – a medieval Tuscan town

 

found a ride

90 euros to Lucca

on the way the driver said

you should sell real estate here

to rich foreigners with your English

I nodded and privately thought

I’d rather sell ice cream than my soul.

 

I walked around

the old amphitheatre

then up the walls

thinking about Colombiana

and trying to interpret a map on paper

how quaint!

All this time

lugged a heavy camera that I borrowed

and listend to a folk band from New Zealand

then, tired

hid for an hour behind a hedge.

 

Ponte Moriano – a small train station

a short Italian man in cutoff jeans welcomed us

six strangers from around the world

we piled up in his jeep and rode up

steep hills to the actual destination –

Villa Boccella

 

Forty people kept arriving through the week

And  split in groups, mine was Team X

Libby, Morgan, Awet, myself

literally hugged trees

gazed at stars at night

walked among the maize.

Where can you find Neville?

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