Bonnie McClellan's Weblog

Paint everything which is not
mountain;
only sky only
the tranquil green of a hayfield
tumbling towards a horizion
ignorant
of what it’s missing.

It is this void, superimposed upon the mountain
which instructs the heart:
Constrict!
There is the possibility of absence.

Bonnie M. McClellan

I have lived in Italy for three years now and it never stops being beautiful. The concept of a quotidian and yet extrodinarily beautiful vision continues to fascinate me as did the daily magic of the sky when I lived in Texas.

I wrote this poem parked in the parkinglot of the cemetery of the town of Orino, Italy. The cemetery is along the local road that I drive down on the way to and from my daughter’s daycare in Castello Cabiaglio. I encounter a vision twice a day on this drive: Monte Rosa. The mountain is the wallpaper of my everyday life. Despite the ubiquity of this beauty, I feel an ache in my chest that has the emotional resonance of loss everytime I round the curve in the road that brings the moutain into sight. I’m still working my brain around living with something so beautiful that it hurts to look at.

Listen to the podcast here.

When something extrodinary becomes part of your ordinary.

~ by bonniemcclellan on July 26, 2009.

Posted in Art and Observation, Life In Italy, Poetry and Translation
Tags: Bonnie McClellan, Expatriate experiences, Italy, Lago Maggiore, Lombardia, modern life, Monte Rosa, my work, poetry