Calabria, land of the Phoenicians? The genealogical reconstruction is the slight trace of a blood relationship, and sometimes a family history, glorious or humble it may be, but it may well be the roots as fossils of ancient plants. With this post, I tried to give it a cultural dimension.
Species to the latest generation is attributable to the failure of the 'project Calabria', understood as the construction of an environment conducive to the balanced growth of its people. Were in fact exacerbated the consequences of a dancer and landslide and earth has been tarnished the appeal of our sea and our mountains. But to them must also credited with having planted the desire to fight, to keep alive the hopes, even when the snarling wolves roam around our 'huts'. And 'the character of Calabria.
mythology Feaci the Homeric Odysseus welcomed with great generosity and, in defiance of Poseidon, he was offered the ship to return to Ithaca.
Two prominent German scholar, Hans & Armin Wolf of the University of Frankfurt, Spread across a rigorous scientific reconstruction recorded in volume wirklich Die Reise des Odysseus show the territory of the Kingdom of the Phoenicians not extend just between the gulfs of Squillace and Lamezia.
At this point of connecting the legendary poetry (of complaint): sea lines .
In the story The cicate , But tinged with melancholy, I write about my grandfather. The story and characters are entirely fictional, while the setting is more likely.
A context, that of Serrastretta, very lively in the old days, now the autumn rather than type, such as chestnuts that someone will still collect. We always build the chairs, but also in this area is strong competition in the East.
well I recently ate at a restaurant Serrastretta but remained very puzzled when I asked a local wine, proposing alternatively, a martyrdom. Yet up to 60 years, my family produced in the 'Nuns' spirited Vignelli.
then I remember my awakening at dawn to the clatter of the mules, heavy coal or logs, between the steep streets of the country or the amazing sight of women carrying a balance on head, on a woven cloth and even without the help of hands, 10 more chairs and interlocked. Mules and men united in the common destiny of earning bread and straw with the offerings of the forest. Now the silence predominates.
was also slow as the mules of the train-Lucane Calabro, more than an hour to travel the 30 km linking Serrastretta in Catanzaro, challenge one of these cliffs and rolled in 1961, taking with it 71 lives. A mention in the story Profession poet.
LINES OF THE SEA
Prologue
Mythos: deeds, narratives,
but in Sanskrit I-mi-te:
bellow, bleat ...
walk in the flock.
transhumance between the myths
sea lines
ravines
horizons
bows
moles
barriers
recall inner journey
real and scorching heat.
Scene
Flocks of men
have left the mountains
and fell into the sea.
Scylla and Charybdis
Hera Lacinia
Capo Vaticano
the footsteps of Ulysses
turkish a galleon.
Roots, reminiscences?
Oblivion!
The water purifiers sealed
and stains devastated
of second homes without water
(like the first),
the sea of \u200b\u200btangents
the sea and the octopuses.
Scene Two:
There is always someone
between the powerful planet
who wants the game to themselves.
On board red-hot
every move a blade of ice melts
and the sea swells his breath.
The sea port and alleys
the sea bed of the ocean and
taxis on the skin
new generation
the reasons for missed
of many stories:
a casual tourist
a clandestine Kurdish
a dumpster burned
bleeding of an oil tanker
a syringe in the sand
the global advertising of a race
the lifeblood of the last tuna.
Scene Three
The restoration of the sea
with the cornucopia of Europe '.
in doubt between past or future
infants
always draw to the myths of the flock:
a likely colored concrete
streaked with black sewer.
It 's the new color of the sea.
Epilogue
Calabria: Mediterranean to discover "
They recorded
the mark of the sea
coast of orange
Cedar
of jasmine,
coast purple
coast of the gods ...
for litigation to land
consumption of water
to the moon and that of dreams.
flaps?
Dreams?
survived by feuds:
Circe landings
not Phaeacian
THE CICATE
family disputes about ownership and neglect over time have reduced the old chapel of family a cumulation of rubble and that plaque not There is more track. Perhaps, as is happened to marble and to friezes temples Greeks been recycled. However, though I had glimpsed only once, impressed me the incision between the childhood memories do not the contents (dark) but as there appeared just my name, "Perri Caesar."
Many years ago, my father, in a sort of rite of memories between the niches of their ancestors, had shown me the plaque (which belonged to a brother of my grandfather), commenting "it was a bit crazy, raised moles. "
then not having familiarity with the 'crazy' and not distinguishing moles from mice seemed to me the combination of low interest "creatures 'strange'" I thought ...
I was intrigued more extravagant home: suddenly the dining room of our house, (the warm sun and locked up in a village in the mountains was no small thing) had been transformed into a tangle of branches for you to grow hungry worms called 'silkworm'. Even more surprised me the kindness of the whole family against them with a coming and going from the orchard to gather mulberry leaves, whereas I, who preferred the more, especially those that dye the hands of a red blood appeared, I had to get it alone, with some risk that no one cared.
As soon as I became older and I had no fear of the 'dead hand' roll that made for the stairs that the kids climbed into the attic during a survey, I saw in one corner, a pile of irons, some intact, others dismembered and I talked to an aunt who lived with us and was the only one that would not have blamed for the Exploration of unconnected pins and plates.
" built them a brother of your grandfather, whose name was like you," adding with a tone accomplice, "before bringing up the moles; evil tongues whispered that he was crazy ... but it was the most Smart family. " (I soon realized the ambiguity of reference).
spent the rest of the summer assembling screws, bolts and plates to make up fantastic war machines, oblivious of the worms and moles.
When, many years later, my father put with reverence on the shelf of the fireplace one of those old iron I remembered that story and asked for an account of my aunt, now ninety.
Indeed, in the mid-nineteenth century, our ancestors had opened a small factory irons (carbon) and the charming vanity was recorded as the "award-winning firm of Perry Board" . Although at that time and those in wooded areas of Calabria, there was plenty of coal and clothing, where he met the equally thriving thanks all'arguzia a period of a brother priest who had suggested the idea of \u200b\u200bincorporating the parishioners iron in the accompanying dowry.
With the advent of electricity and the preference of many villagers to the Belgian coal mines, at the cost of leaving the life, the kilns were gradually turned off and the surrounding area, already gray iron dust, had become even more spooky for the appearance of many tiny craters. Without trampling of mules and wagons and the curses of the workers had become an ideal habitat for the moles so that the craters were also extended inside the sheds.
order to appease the frustration or boredom, or to the nest of insanity, 'our' decided to educate the moles ... get used to the light and he neglects his wife, children and all other work, devoted the rest of his life to these animals, who affectionately called 'cicate'. Regardless of the costs, in a shed built of brick tanks and two feet deep after filling it with peat There disseminated thousands of earthworms from the best farms in polesine and endowed it with a plant for electric lighting while much Part of the villagers were using candles in the oil fried. In a partition wall between his office and warehouse inserted a sheet of smoked glass to be able to observe unnoticed the timid creatures, even resigning to take off the 'Tuscan' whose power began with the roast barley morning and had survived for ten to fifteen years mutterings of his wife.
And waited ...
waited for several weeks because of cicate, perhaps disturbed by the bustle of preparation and even dim light bulb, there was no further sign, the bottom would have good reason to stay away from men , also because of certain indigestible concoction they poured in the holes (the most common was castor oil).
Finally one morning and felt a welcome rooting after a hairless nose peeped from the edge of a hole, but no time to gloat and cicata had vanished from the depths of the soil. To his good fortune at the same time the next day the cicata leaned in full from the crater, spied, smell and feeling vibrations went zigzagging toward interesting pools of earthworms and sank there. After quite a bit like a miniature bathyscaphe, emerged from the bottom and despite the sluggish legs maimed hopped toward the den. The back and forth continued for several weeks despite the 'periodic increase the brightness of the bulbs, then stopped.
Disappointed and mocked (the family called for a more profitable pig farm), was about to give up the experiment, when after three months, the usual time (the 'internal clock?) The mole came out followed by 5 Puppies and the whole company walked nonchalantly to the table. The moles no longer feared the light and the view distance is clouded with emotion!
In subsequent years, whole brigades of moles, presumably descendants of the first parent (the scar) wandering out of their holes even though the rays of the sun through the open windows, to revive the factory.
When he died they found penned the text that the land was assigned to the moles (a '' protected area 'we would say today). The notary did not consider it legally feasible donation and the heirs sold the property to the municipality. There arose a school that, to quiet the soul weird, he was entitled. As a result of emigration and birth control was converted into a local hospice.
Now, the few old survivors were reclassified as 'frail elderly' and were transferred into the tunnels of a nursing home (private) where they are carefully used to dark. The silence has returned avenues and flower beds have reappeared and the holes. What kind of mole you took office? But now who looks to the moles?
CP, not trusting the descendants had long prepared his tombstone engraved with an epitaph that I was impressed in the memories of childhood: "It 's easier to educate moles in the light of men: oscuritas stat in mind. " A reference to itself?
PROFESSION 'POET'
a few weeks, I had voluntarily excluded from the job of mummies. Enough with the stale air. Now I could breathe on my own.
I decided to bring some cookies to my aunt nonagenarian, separating the car for fear of ice.
on one of the last trains that still smell of tobacco, and half-empty, drift from the valley above the village, I met a poet.
"Profession poet." Or so it appeared. Of ancient elegance in dress and in tune with his worn leather bag, containing his poems that he always carried with him into his life as a commuter. In sub orderly conduct of the trade employed by the state store. Having seen some doubt
-demand movement of my eyebrows, double buckle Appendix winds and opened the laptop.
"I have participated in 323 contests of poetry and have never been awarded. Except in the first 13 I have not sent the fee for reading. But travel on this train for 252 days a year that are round trip, 504 locations. During each compose a poem of at least three verses that I read the following day to a fellow traveler. For the amount of the poems and the audience will have the right to call me a poet? "
" Certainly! "
" Today it's up to you, if I may. "
" Willingly. "Declaimed
The all in one go:
" Each day has
his poetry that deserves to be written.
Here's what I wrote yesterday:
today, March 23, 2010,
I met a gentleman new to the market
leading a pack of wild turnip,
and yesterday wore bunches of oregano.
not recover the money from ticket
but goes to occupy its place in the square where everyone
that passes, even when
greets
know that every day he is there and he knows
and welcomes it.
E 'himself, when it meets me,
to request a new poem he says,
each day has a poem that deserves to be heard,
so I read that the day before.
Today March 22, 2010
the rain washes the windows
and you can see a mist so thick that you
penetrates smoked a cigarette as if thoughts
not any poisons.
Do not forget to switch the laundry. "
" You like? "
" Interesting, "I said sincerely," but they are two poems?
"No, no, it's one breath, and before you inhale and then exhale. It 's always like that! "
" Oh yes! "
He continued: " poems are the salt air on the pier when the sea svirgola, a north-impregnated resin or breath of an leaden engine. We each breathe and breathe on his own. Sometimes it is a hygienic mask but, thank goodness, not a heart-lung ventilation in the program. "
Actually, the train was to have too, so hobbled the last slope.
