Tag: Bonnie McClellan

Two things I love about my kitchen

This is my kitchen counter, I love it. It’s a 2″ thick slab of bardiglio marble that we brought with us from Cararra. It’s polished on one side but the surface was straight from the big cutting machine so it undulates a bit. The piece is a scrap that was left over from the memorial fountain that Matthew carved for Angelo Frammartino in Caulonia. The colour has darkened over time as we’ve used it to kneed bread and roll out pie dough and biscuits. It’s scarred from the cutting of myriad things and I have written my biscuit recipe on the edge with wax pencil.  Every time I use it, even every time I look at it I find a rich surface full of memories that reflects the story of our family and our connections to different parts of Italy.

Another thing that I love in my kitchen is the cutting board. This is a slab of olive wood that was left over from a spiral stair case that Matthew made for a cabin belonging to the family whose house we
lived under while I was pregnant with Robin Kay.
The edge is uneven as it’s the exterior of the tree itself with a knot on the leading edge. It’s a beautiful golden-red wood that’s perfect for any cutting or slicing and brings back memories of that tiny apartment under the mill and my pregnant belly full of kicking baby. This chunk of wood has trailed along with us for the last 4 years and should last for many, many more.

My kitchen looks nothing like anything I’ve ever seen in a magazine but I love these rich, worn materials that work perfectly for what we need and carry the story of our family in their luminous surfaces.

Ghost World

If I look pasty in this picture it’s because I’ve been sanding fossiliferous limestone curlycues all day. At one point I stopped to carry a few loads of wood from the van up the three flights of stairs to our house and I met an old fellow coming the other direction up the very narrow street that passes in front of our door. He looked away as we neared one another but did respond when I smiled broadly and said good-morning. Only later did I realize how odd I must have looked, dressed like a rapper in glasses with flowered wellies and covered from head to toe in fine cream coloured powder.
Even at 42 I’ve yet to decide if it’s fortunate or unfortunate that I almost never realize what I look like. I think about it when I’m dressing and then I forget…until someone else notices.
Meanwhile, while her dad and I were busy being stoneworkers, my daughter had a ‘you know you’re going to nursery school in Italy when’ moment. Her whole class tromped down to the church to hear the beginning of the Christmas story. I’m a bit edgy about this part of the school but thought I’d let her go and see if she liked it or no. 
She said: “Mamma! I saw a ‘gesu bambino’ at the church. His mamma was with him.” She didn’t have much else to report other than she was glad that the bells weren’t ringing because they’re too loud and that they’d been fortunate because no one’s toes had been ‘sciaciata-ed’ (squashed) because they’d walked through the main piazza where there were CARS. I had a flash-memory of being in a blue dress on the stage at my 3rd grade christmas pagent playing the Virgin Mary and singing carols in Spanish…”Adorar al nino, corremos pastores…”

Thankful Anyway

Today is Thanksgiving but not in Italy; at least it’s not a holiday here. I think we’re planning to have onion soup. I miss the food and being with my family and hanging out in the kitchen talking about food; but, I don’t miss being irritated at the pile of people huddled around the TV watching football. Now, don’t get me wrong, I LIKE football, I just don’t like it when it’s an excuse for some people to zone out on the couch while everyone else cooks and cleans up. 
That said, it’s funny that it’s just a regular work day here. I went this morning and bought wood for the woodburning stove we use to heat the house. Something that I never had to know as a Texan: when buying wood choose the pieces that are light for thier size they’re drier and cheaper. After that I went to the grocery store; the’ve just started the Christmas merchandising here. No big bin of turkeys in the meat section, no piles of sweetpotatos and bags of fresh cranberries in the produce section…just business as usual.
I came home, had lunch and then went to work with Matthew on finishing these:
I wonder how many years it will be until no one knows how to do this work in a first-world country? Today I’m thankful for my wonderful family, that I got lucky and found lots of dry wood at the woodyard, that I live in a beautiful house in a beautiful country, and deeply thankful that there are still people around who are willing to buy something that they can’t pick out of a catalogue.
Have a beautiful day full of good food ya’ll!

In the office of Dottore La Sala

Just got back from my first visit to the local doctor. He’s been Matthew’s doctor for some time now and has the office just off to the side of the piazza as you turn to go up towards the city hall from the church. He’s a soft-spoken fellow and didn’t blink an eye when I said that I’d got through last night by breathing the steam from and drinking a tea made of rosemary and cloves for my cough because they were both good anti-spasmodics and the rosemary a good antiseptic for the respiratory tract. In fact, he agreed that these were good things to try asked me about the allergies I’d had in Texas, shook his head at the mention of ‘ragweed’ and then sent me along with a prescription for Zithromax and Cortizone to take care of the bronchitis. My neighbor loaned me her nebulizer so I can breath the cortizone and I picked up some cream for her daughter at the pharmacy on my way. Three kinds of medicine including antibiotics (I opted for the generics) less than 15 euro. Visit to doctor, free. Another positive experience with the public health system in Italy.

O Sole Mio…

Today there is sun! Though I saw Monte Rosa full of snow this morning as Matthew and I were driving from Gemonio to Castello Cabiaglio where he’s painting a the living room of an antiques dealer. I was tagging along to finally see the house where Matthew has done quite a bit of work. Amazing, same era as the one we live in (end of 19th beg. 20th cent. here the style is called Liberty). Unlike ours, his is furnished with beautiful stuff of the era or older all in amazing condition. Like ours, his house has a zillion windows facing south that are paned with the glass of the era, full of subtle bubbles and ridges that make a room full of light look like you’re standing underwater. Every shadow rendered aqueous.

The antiquarian has a huge Venetian chandelier from 1780(ish) and a few of the glass bits were broken. Last night, Matthew brought them for me as a present. There is something amazing about holding a piece of hand blown glass that is 250 years old, something that says one shouldn’t throw it away even if it can’t be used for its original purpose. We have plans to make a steel structure gilded with white gold leaf to hold up these two pieces of glass that make the shadow of fire look like water.

Caulonian Suite: II. Caulonia Supriore

CAULONIA SUPERIORE

for Matthew

The sky roils;

swallows knit webbed gyres

among the baroque sag of rooftops.

Across the way they’re fixing one;

new russet barrel tiles sealed over

old timber bones.

I hear a sound like the pounding

Of a battering ram or the cleaving

Of an immense stump

Contrapunted with a loud HUP.

My daughter sleeps with the abandon

of an unfettered shutter swinging in a stiff wind.

A woman in her fifties climbs the stairs

to the house where she and my daughter

were both conceived.

We regard each other with

that part of the eye

which admits an alternate aim.

The pounding stops.

The church bells go off

with the percussive invective

of a fire alarm

DANGATIDANGATIDANGDANGDANG.

They say it’s peculiar to here:

someone sounds the bell

not with the pull of a knotted rope

but with the unlevered force of arms.

This is the second in a suite of poems about Caulonia Supiore

 

Via Clivio

the tile lined roof on the last villa

of the petty nobles of this town

sags like the jaw line of a matron.

her voice sings out

a spinster’s peevish tweet:

“VERGOGNA! VERGOGNA!”

she:

(distant falling daughter of whatever local saint–

though aren’t we all?)

shames her poor dog.

he of:

nothing to do but go mad with barking;

jamesian psycosis

closed shutters

infinite empty rooms.

Series I : Polyvalence : context is everything

Series I : polyvalence* : context is everything

1.

Burial at Sea

WAKE

2.

Speaking Truth toPower/The Admonitions Scroll

STAY

CURRENT

3.

Morning Shift

CHANGE

SIMPLE DRESS

MOVE


*pol·y·va·lent (pŏl’ē-vā’lənt)
adj.

  1. Acting against or interacting with more than one kind of antigen, antibody, toxin, or microorganism.
  2. Chemistry
    1. Having more than one valence.
    2. Having a valence of 3 or higher.

3. (fig.) having many different functions, forms, or facets.

IPM 2MX…Where have all the poems gone?

International Poetry Month 2010 is now closed. The marauding hordes left the library ablaze, the flood washed away the ashes, the caravan carrying the last copy of the precious poetry collection has vanished in the desert.

What remains is the oral tradition; I have made audio files of each poem available where the poem used to be posted. There is also the possibility that a copy of some of these works still exist in the archives of the poets themselves. Anyone who is on my e-mail list has a ‘fragment’ of each work. Perhaps, like the poems of Sappho, this is all that will remain.

I would like to extend my profound thanks to the following guest poets for their contributions:

Anonymous 21st cent. Italian Poet

Chris Fillebrown

Brad Frederiksen

Tom McClellan

Adina Richman

Liliane Richman

Jere Schaefer

Paul Squires

Several of these poets have blogs where new poetry may be encountered. I encourage anyone suffering from poetry withdrawal to visit these sites by clicking on any of the names that appear in colour.

Thanks as well to everyone who has stopped by to read and comment on the posted work. It has been a real joy to present so much fine poetry this year. Now I have to start thinking about next year, and as my sweetheart reminded me this morning, get back to writing.

A presto!