Robin & Sean and their two children in the hills of Umbria.
They were renting, for several months, a converted
mill-house. (Used for pressing olives.) I ran across
these journal entries and decided to post a few of them
until the muse (and the finger muscles) return.
Here's the first installment:
Pi and I hiked up the road this afternoon, daring the sun
to make an appearance. Few humans. Probably more dogs:
hunting dogs penned and barking, a chained Great Dane rattling
across his yard to us, teeth bared. A barnyard of ewes
and lambs, bumping into and stepping on top of each other.
Bleating, bleating. A coterie of doves. Rabbits in cages,
each with an inverted Fanta bottle tapped as water supply.
A friendly horse, a galloping donkey. A lonely apiary
on a hilltop, each painted a green the color of early lettuce,
each topped with an irregular lunk of concrete.
Waded through mud, watched some men on a far hillside
tend a burnpile of brush, the crackle & spit easily within
hearing distance. Wandered offroad and traced the edge
of the hillside above the Molino, looking for a switch-back
down, but relented when every trail seemed to veer
precipitously close to a certain death. Down, down the valley,
the stream tumbling below, past the menacing dogs,
past the donkey and the horse, past the two men in red
chainsawing young trees – a scarcity of firewood.
Down to the Molino, where a thin trail of smoke
promised a warm hearth, a cup of tea,
the comfort of Randy-the-cat on the lap.
Lovely post T. Is that a pic of the house your friends rented - I love rustic anything! I would like to hear more about your trip.
ReplyDeleteThanks, RW! And yes, that's the house where we stayed. Stone! Cold! Check it out: http://www.molinomeocci.com/
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