Spring Comes To Tuscany

Glory be to God for dappled things! Look, Mina, where the wanton wind is chasing the cloud shadows across the dale! They skip like hares! Throw open both doors, front and back - abandon care! Let that breeze, with scent of thyme on its breath, scour out the must and dust of cramped, crabby, clammed-up winter. The spawn is on the glassy pond, swifts are fizzing round San Giorgio's steeple, and all the earth is on the move. I love the music of the rivulet, tinkling an aria as it prances down the vale, scurrying from snow to wheat. We'll scrub the floor with clean stream-water, paint the walls with nostril-stinging lime! Bells are clanging in Arezzo far below, strangers are smiling, waving as they pass. The very dogs are laughing. That storm, yonder? It's over Trasimeno, sending its brass and double-basses booming through the valley floor. Don't fret, Mina! It's God's trumpet, telling us to dance again, to dress the vines! Pull down the fat old cheese. No matter - I feel reckless! This morning, as I picked your violets near Cennino, in the poplar copse, I found these truffles. Smell! Some cheese, a cup of wine - the blood of other summers. We'll go to Camposanto later. The path will shine white in the fresh sun, And we'll hold hands. Even that gnarled old hawthorn is in bud. Life, Mina, life itself - don't you feel it, girl?