Scarce Harvest

War World II was raging over this southern Italian town* spared by a miracle... a deluge that suddenly occurred: a night of blasting sounds, of rising flames as American planes bombarded its buildings; the Nazis fled to occupied Naples. In the North, the Fascits were executed, as the Dictator Mussolini himself was. The farms could not be furrowed deep and neat, fear hung over the farmers' shoulders; and wheat couldn't grow abundantly to make bread, and brazen women to a distant granary they went, risking their lives to grind the wheat kernels; they were no young men in town, or the older ones who had gone to war for a concept so deceptive. Many youngsters and soldiers were kidnapped by the Nazis, to be taken to Germany as prisoners of war...who would have challenged the Third Reich, or disobeyed? Old women with handkerchiefs on their heads, weeping loudly and mourning the tranquil town it once was...so lovely and happy, and their cry was too bitter and inconsolable to be hushed; now, even bread was taken away from them, damning the cruel Duce, who had betrayed them for vanity... why did he bring prosperity to Africa, not to Italy? Why was his ego so manipulated by Hitler's cleverness... that he could have conquered peoples and lands? Ruins and dead kindred...a scenery of dread and abomination, and the lively memory of begonias on their sunny balconies brought a sweet nostalgia in an hour of horror and death; and gathered among the crumbled walls, their rosaries recited with graceful whispers, gave them the strength and the courage to desperately grieve: "Peace, o beloved peace, have you overlooked the kindness of such humble and honorable spirits? Darkness brought the silence they had sought under the glittering skies, to hide the ugliness of the war in their gloomy shadows, never to reveal the devastation of their town; and with the new sun rising, hope would have been renewed in the sunrise's lasting glow. They would have seen those wheat golden kernels bend under their heavy weight and bow.... and heard themselves saying," Mercy, o mercy of our righteous God, let prosperity abound... as the misty rain slowly comes down!" Southern Italian Town: Baiano Copyright 2009 by Andrew Crisci