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Earth, my earth, my dark mountains, my clear night, my cold air of summer's end, my moon halo. Tree-lined boulevards and white stone sidewalks. A black cat with frozen eyes looks at me from under a car. Wild cat, unkempt fur and wolf tendons. The railway underpass, graffiti and steel, and buses going to Fiumicino. Slavic faces. Arabs at the fruit stand tidying up peaches in perfect rows, with a cigarette and a smile. Wool jumper, grocery bags, smell of bread. Flour hands. Boiled must, dense as blood. A café, young boys sitting outside in the five o'clock light. Cathedral square and a marionette show. Pulcinella receives love letters. Peeping in to look at the puppeteers, shuffling feet and voices without faces. Lost children's looks, adults sitting on the fountain. The popcorn stand, and cotton candy. And walking through the streets remembering my childhood's places, and others that have changed. And remembering Christmas and long summers of slowly-flowing time, when august still smelled of sea and sand.
