Home for my Heart
(A poem about my love for Italy.)
Cover me with fields of yellow sunlit grass,
And let the Cyprus trees with their long blue-green fingers,
Touch me in my waist and knees,
Where I laugh with so much tenderness and delight.
An excitement seeing the golden land where I return
To where my ancestors lived and worked, on such dry clean earth.
The church bells lift me up in transparent yellow sheets,
And the heaviness of human thoughts dissipates with their music.
Old hands baking biscotti in crisp morning air,
Warms my nose and shoulders like waking up in love.
The deep inhale of rising bread,
And the exhale that makes a smile.
My senses are reborn,
And rise to the surface of my skin.
With each new taste my mouth blooms like a rose.
My eyes are the glassless windows in my room,
My eyelids are the green shutters that I close with the tips of my fingers.
The inside fresh as the outside,
My thoughts are excited children tucked into bed.
So many paintings inside such a small woman’s boot,
So many strokes of vibrating colors and light,
There is face after face of spiritual ecstasy,
Agonizing Christ,
Transient Christ,
Breathes the cold air wearing frankincense inside chilled concrete cathedrals.
Each day my feet remember the warm sunbaked rocks by the sea,
My mouth remembers small sweet tomatoes bursting between my teeth,
My eyes see the color of alizarin crimson, and Giotto’s blue,
My nose dreams of basil, garlic and bitter olives like biting into tiny broken hearts.
My fingers feel the smooth translucent marble,
Each of these are like warm soft kisses on my forehead at night.
I am a grain in the bread of this land,
The land that houses my heart and which will release my soul to the deep blue-green sea.
-Valerie Milo
