November Letter to My Grandmother Teresa.

Nonna,

how are you,

where are you,

who have you become

in the afterlife?

Here,

in a land so far from my roots

I remember.

And I miss you.

I miss the winters

you and I by the fire,

the clay pot whispering

as beans slowly cooks.

I miss that home:

so simple, so poor,

yet to me

it was an enchanted castle, 

and you were my fairy.

I miss your stories

those of a generation

from whom I learned

a good heart,

arms that never closed,

and faith

steady as your rosary beads.

Oh, Nonna,

how lost I would be

without those pearls

you placed

in the folds of my soul.

And I miss the boy I was,

the innocence of my heart,

the lightness of my mind,

before the years grew heavy

and the world became dangerous.

But now these places, once magical,

are silence and nostalgia.

Mute ghosts inhabit those houses,

and no one asks me anymore:

whose son are you, boy?

The rooster no longer sings, the brambles have swallowed the pomegranate, and the fragrance of bread has vanished among the shadows of the past.

And tell me, Nonna:

how are Mum and Dad?

Do you see them?

Do you speak to them?

Why don’t they speak to me?

Do they know

how terribly I miss them?

And how is God?

Is He as beautiful

as they said He would be?

How is He,

what do you see,

what do you hear?

Does He know

how much I need Him,

how His silence

tears my soul apart?