This is the sixteenth poem in a series called “An American and an Italian Spring” chronicling a spring trip to Rome and the Amalfi Coast.
Campo de’ Fiori was bustling
in the bright springtime sun.
Maneuvering through the tent booths
of the Italian farm market
this Medieval fair
provides color and excitement—
fresh fruit, nuts,
and a festive bright pink “Ciao Bella” t-shirt
for my Italian-Mexican-American granddaughter.
Here I found
Newark Airport’s shoeshine stand’s international twin
seated on a rickety fruit box
with a plywood board
and a shining rag which had seen better days.
His four year old daughter picking through something
on the pavement next to him.
I brought packages of Italian tomato seeds
for my 90 year old father at home
then passed a lady in black,
whose face I would not see
squatted in the foot path between two stalls
swaying—now undulating—back and forth
staring at the pavement
the top of her head exposed
her wrinkled palm open—
a human collection plate propped up by her knee.
In 1966 in New York, my mother had taught me
about “beggars” in the streets.
Most unemployed men.
Appearances deceived, she taught,
while they appeared “down on their luck”
it was drink, not luck,
that defined their station.
So at age 17 in Manhattan,
cock sure that the world’s ills were there for me to fix.
I told him I would not give him a quarter
but would go to the Automat with him
buy him the cup of coffee
for which he begged a contribution.
He proved my mother’s point.
This elderly Italian lady though
could not be faking the seven round hematomas on her skull.
I did not see her face
a face of sorrow she did not care to share
or did not know she could.
As I reached into my pocket for some Euro coins
whose value I did not yet appreciate
I was sure my mother would have understood.
Ray Brown
Read the entire series as it is developed – “An American and an Italian Spring”
