Chili's Bar and Grill, Tempe, Arizona, United States (or: My Sicilian Heart)

Four orders of chicken crispers on my left, four orders of chicken crispers on my right, Enough sodium and calories on each plate to last its eater a full week. In front of me, a tall glass of water. Two months later, this is the first time “La Nostra Famiglia Italiana” has reconvened, but it would appear that “Italiana” is in short supply. As each in turn dives into the pool of grease on the plate before them I begin to feel nauseous from the fumes alone; for respite I can only fantasize about that great Sicilian feast I never enjoyed.

 

Two months before I finally bring myself to scratch with pitiful words the splendor of that tiny isle, that tiny town of my father’s father’s father, where “La Nostra Famiglia Italiana” strangely communed with my Italian family, where I sprawled with Sicilian Nero in hand, on sand so smooth the blue sky danced upon its white ridges, drinking desperately the cool sea air. Salty air which meanders lazily through sun-baked streets mingling with the sweet perfume of flowers overflowing on every curb.

 

Truth is beauty, beauty truth, and here I didn’t need metaphor to feel at home; The prickly-pear cacti, prolific agave, soaring jagged mountains demanded reminisces of the Arizona landscape I know so well. That sea I had unknowingly carried reflected in my eyes for 20 years, she told me.

 

I had come eagerly anticipating the taste of Sicily’s famous cuisine, but ignorance of the great siesta forced us to leave for our flight, this wish still unfulfilled. Clearly Sicily, that mother island, was slapping me on the wrist for visiting only for a few short hours. And, in the airport, as my backpack was snatched from the x-ray machine to be searched, I knew that the stern mother would confiscate the forbidden sweets I had sneaked off the kitchen counter in the form of a jar of olives with far more liquid than the carry-on limit and a wine bottle that could quickly serve to beat the pilot into submission. However, when the officer removed them from my bag, looked, shrugged, and put them back, I knew. This was no punishment from my mother island. She was merely beckoning my Sicilian heart back home.

 

I Found Keats in my Cornflakes

I found Keats in my cornflakes. Sitting at the kitchen table, the window wide open to the cramped courtyard’s potted gardens and drying clothes. Down three flights of marble stairs (or an elevator that was a cage) the throbbing streets of Rome: Vespas and Fiats careening through its narrow veins, skidding to a halt before waves of pedestrians paying no heed, vendors shamelessly peddling their wares to any and all passers-by, couples making love with their clothes on, gypsies, parasites picking your pocket, ancient ruins presiding indifferently over everything, casually waiting for the next two thousand years. But I was in the kitchen. And I found Keats in my cornflakes.

“Beauty is truth, truth beauty”

The words seemed so cryptic when first I read them almost a year ago; I tossed them aside, meaningless. But suddenly, on this journey lined by ancient treasures whose meaning, whose history, true or not, I could never hope to fully understand, but whose beauty I could never cease to admire, they came ringing back with unprecedented clarity.

I continued to nibble on these thoughts as I finished my bowl of cereal.

Ode on a Grecian Urn

John Keats (1795-1821)

1. THOU still unravish’d bride of quietness,   Thou foster-child of silence and slow time, Sylvan historian, who canst thus express   A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme: What leaf-fring’d legend haunts about thy shape         5   Of deities or mortals, or of both,     In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?   What men or gods are these? What maidens loth?   What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?     What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?         10 2. Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard   Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on; Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear’d,   Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone: Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave         15   Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare;     Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss, Though winning near the goal—yet, do not grieve;   She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,     For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!         20 3. Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed   Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu; And, happy melodist, unwearied,   For ever piping songs for ever new; More happy love! more happy, happy love!         25   For ever warm and still to be enjoy’d,     For ever panting, and for ever young; All breathing human passion far above,   That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy’d,     A burning forehead, and a parching tongue.         30 4. Who are these coming to the sacrifice?   To what green altar, O mysterious priest, Lead’st thou that heifer lowing at the skies,   And all her silken flanks with garlands drest? What little town by river or sea shore,         35   Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel, Is emptied of this folk, this pious morn? And, little town, thy streets for evermore   Will silent be; and not a soul to tell     Why thou art desolate, can e’er return.         40 5. O Attic shape! Fair attitude! with brede   Of marble men and maidens overwrought, With forest branches and the trodden weed;   Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral!         45   When old age shall this generation waste,     Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say’st,   “Beauty is truth, truth beauty,”—that is all     Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.         50