Allan Lake is a migrant poet from Allover, Canada who now lives in Allover, Australia. Coincidence. He has published poems in 20 countries. His latest chapbook of poems, entitled ‘My Photos of Sicily’, was published by Ginninderra Press. It contains no photos, only poems.
Today our not-so-old neighbour, widower,
came to visit only because we invited
him and nailed down a day and time.
His son and daughter both live far away.
Zero grandchildren. No dog, cat or joy.
Rosita spoke to him in the local mix
of Sicilian/Italian that I don’t understand.
Over coffee and sweets that should make
living worth the effort, I asked his age
in my very limited Italian and learned
he was a mere year older than me.
Somehow I conjured a weak joke about
my willingness to listen to the wisdom
of one who had lived so much longer
than myself. We had a polite chuckle,
spoke of local issues, pigeons on rooves,
potholes on roads, bureaucratic constipation
but we could see that he was triste which
means sad in many languages other than
English, still triste as he checked the time,
politely took his leave and walked directly
back to his large, empty, echoing house.
Neither of us said anything more;
we just shared an embrace
before tidying the table.
For other contributions by Allan Lake, please follow the links below:
- Soft Landing
- Twenty-Minute Documentary
- Stasis Before Tourist Season
- Capo d’Orlando, Sicilia
- Late Mourning, Sicily
- [Sicilian] [Cemetery]
Poetry in this post: © Allan Lake
Published with the permission of Allan Lake