In memory of Vincenzina.
There’s something between the curtains and the windowsill,
and in the earth under your fingernails
after you did some gardening:
raw and real,
much more than dirt,
nourishing soil, from which all life
grows.
Seasons come and go,
with placid inevitability,
swinging like a pendulum,
with the hypnotic rhythm of a lullaby.
You are not here anymore.
And yet…you are:
where quantum physics meets God,
in the interstices between worlds,
at dusk,
when everything pauses for a moment,
in wait.
Where Tinder meets true love,
and at the juncture where Cinderella
realised she wanted to be an astronaut
rather than marrying Prince Charming.
Where warm smiles tell tales of home and belongings,
in the spark of creation,
in the endless cycles of life and (re)birth.
Heaven and hell? The Valhalla? Tír na
nÓg? Or reincarnation?
The possibilities are endless:
Vishnu or Muhammad,
Christ or Athena?
I do not know.
You are here:
in the chirping of the birds,
the purring of the cats,
and in the contradictions of this world –
those contradictions that so often make me angry and sad,
those contradictions that keep us alive.
About the Author
Dr. Tiziana Soverino is an Italian researcher, writer and activist who lives in Dublin, Ireland. Her poems, short stories and humorous pieces have appeared in Landing Places: Immigrant Poets in Ireland (2010), Boyne Berries (2012) and Ireland’s Own (2015).
Connect with this Author: Twitter: @SoverinoTiziana LinkedIn: https://ie.linkedin.com/in/tizianasoverino
Tiziana’s words on multiculturalism: The true meaning of multiculturalism is encapsulated by Haruki Murakami, who said: “No matter how high a wall we build to keep intruders out, no matter how strictly we exclude outsiders, no matter how much we rewrite history to suit us, we just end up damaging and hurting ourselves. We have no hope against the wall: it’s too high, too dark, too cold. To fight the wall, we must join our souls together for warmth, strength. We must not let the system control us—create who we are. It is we who created the system”.
