14/12/2024
La Villa Aurelia
I dream in blues and whites.
Blue sky, blue sea, blue walls.
Hand-painted tiles with blue flourishes
on polished white floors.
White boats by the hundreds on the Bay of Pozzuoli,
streaks of white wake behind them.
White Lego villages on the hillsides,
clothes drying on a rack in the white sun.
I disappear into crisp, white sheets,
finger the raised pattern
of the cotton jacquard coverlet,
white on white.
Other colors, too.
Creams and grays—the yellow tufa
of the ancient mountains, temples, Roman walls.
Espresso—not just the coffee
but the color of the young men’s hair.
Golden browns, the color of crust on Italian bread.
Honey-browns, the color of the young women’s skin.
But it’s the blues and whites that stop me.
Colors of the Mediterranean,
colors of this living dream.
—Jennifer Read Hawthorne, coauthor, #1 New York Times bestseller Chicken Soup for the Woman’s Soul and Life As a Prayer: Poems
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