We sat on a wooden bench
Beneath a rustling willow tree.
Your face glowed with love
Like a desirable lily flower
The purest hope of spring.
The evening ascended in a flaming stance
My yearning heart emulated a nightingale lullaby.
I whispered your name, sweet Marianna.
It was such a lovely name
And lovelier was your face.
Such delicate features,
Such graceful lips, so red.
I dared to kiss her long and sweet.
Tell me, who could blame me?
In the hushed silence of sunset,
I listened for the soft splash of spring.
Our tender faces breathed united in love.
I waited as the magenta moonlight shone on your face,
so that we could love as one, face to face,
in search of the glorious blue birds of love.
Grandma Teresina Cavicchio,
best pizza fritta maker
in all of Marianna, PA.
Probably the whole world!
Her fried pizza dough, dusted
with powdered sugar,
bellissima!
Lightly browned outside,
creamy in the inside,
it was the stuff
of mouth-watering dreams.
My three sisters and I
lined up in Nonna’s kitchen, chanted,
“Pizza Fritta, good to eat-a,
give me some, it is a treat-a!”
Her apron white with snowy sugar,
her ample arms coated in flour,
she never failed to please us.
Though I’ll never have Nonna’s
pizza fritta again,
I picture St. Peter and the angels,
powdered sugar moustaches,
greasy lips and beatific smiles,
gathering round Nonna.
"Pizza fritta, good to eat-a,
give us some, a heavenly treat-a."
My mindful runes reveal meaningful memories, reaching readers midst my rhythmic rhymes.
Grandpa Francesco Proia,
from Caserta, Italia,
a clever stowaway
in the bowels of the ship
bringing him to Ellis Island,
Feb. 4, 1905.
Gruff ways,
often snarling a guttural “Huh,”
a lack of English,
never-ending hand gestures,
made me fearful of him.
But awestruck I was
with the romantic notion
of his stowing away.
Bootlegging homemade vino
during Prohibition – another
plus as he captured my imagination as
un farabutto – a scoundrel, a reprobate.
Add in his being a coal mine boss
in Marianna, Pennsylvania,
and I had a genuine hero.
How many other children
claimed such details about their grandpas?
Never telling anyone
of my naïve admiration for him,
family loyalty prevented me
from bragging about him.
Living to just a few days short
of his “hunnert” birthday,
I loved and admired him to the end.
Even when the ship’s manifest
I discovered for La Lorraine
listed him as a passenger
in steerage, not a stowaway.
It was so large
The New York Barge
If you wish to see
The Statue of Liberty
You board the boat
And away you float
My ornery friend
(Lifelong-till the end)
Refused to board the barge
It was packed and looked large
So I took a bandana
Blindfolded Marianna
Led my ornery pal
To the mid-ship locale
She protested ardently
I reassured her cheerfully
Made it to the island
But I had to hold her hand
As we climbed to the top
Oh my, what a drop
This was the only way
Her fears I could allay
Marianna felt proud
She’d made it through the crowd
But to this very day
She scowls at me in play
Whenever I mention
Our New York vacation
Her fear of the sea
Seems now gone, you see
But I’ll hold off on buying a cruise
Because my dear friend I would lose
To this day she’s ornery
But she’ll never be ordinary
*Entry for Carol Browns Ornery Best Friends contest. True story.
It’s surrealistic in what I see
In the most unlikely places, in fact.
Especially when unexpectedly
They appear before wearily eyes, abstract.
Was eating my usual cereal:
Shredded wheat with sliced ripen banana.
Staring back from my empty spoon revealed
A face, the ghost of my Marianna.
Startled, yet saddened, my head turned around
Expecting to see my wife’s lovely face.
Instead I had found a man with a frown
Mirroring back from a glass-door bookcase.
Her haunting visits, this angel of death
Will continue I guess till my last breath.
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