Looking out over the Elsa Valley: Tuscany, 1998

Today's poem, "Looking out over the Elsa Valley: Tuscany, 1998", was inspired by reading notes and poems I wrote while staying in Cellole Uno, ten years ago. I found them while doing the cleanup I wrote about in yesterday's poem, "clearing out the essentials"


For two weeks in April 1998, we rented a section of the villa shown here. This is located just a couple of kilometers from Castellina in Chianti, about half way between Firenza (Florence) and Sienna.

The view of the Elna valley shown here is partly visible in the above photo of the villa. The reason that the left side of the photo is dark is that I don't have a scanner: I took the digital image of the photo on the kitchen counter.

What struck me about the contrast between Canada and Italy was how wild our country is in comparison to the sense that every inch of Italy has been worked over for millennia.

Looking at "You're Soaking In It!"

I had not realized it until just a few minutes ago, but "You're Soaking In It!" is currently the most popular poem in my blog. Of the most recent 100 hits, it had 26 (that's all my free service counts.) Little did I know when I posted that poem on March 18, 2006, that I was fascinating some people. I remember the line from the detergent commercial, where Madge is doing somebody's nails, and lets drop that her client is soaking her nails in whatever dish detergent it was.

I had to read the poem again to remember that it was about mirrors and mathematics, and visiting Versailles and Firenza and what those places meant to me and how they changed my view of the world.

(several hours later)

I read it to the writers at the club meeting tonight: polite applause, then a newbie who had arrived during my read excitedly asked to read, and we went on with no discussion. I think it is hard to discuss poetry without seeing it; I guess I should expect that maybe next time I'll take copies for everyone. Next time, I think I'll read "Linen", and give out copies. All I have to do is remember that.

"The Canadian" — a train ride, a country

The link for the title of this piece takes you to the whole category of poems I posted in my blog (and will continue to post there) . Here is a photo of the staircase in the lounge car:

The cars (manufactured in 1950) used to belong to the Candian Pacific Railway (CPR), which ran a little to the south of the Canadian National Railway (CNR). They are stainless steel and very art deco. In the photo, you can see the dome, which gives a 360 degree view of everything.






Here is a unique view out the rear of the train, through the lounge window:

In future posts, I shall give you other views, some particularly inspirational with regard to particular poems.