August Diary
Mito, Alcantara Gorge, near Etna, Sicily
31st August 2016
Sicily is at once a redolent sensuous present and a
layering of pasts that demand attention from even the most indolent passers
through.
We are in a small house in an estate that rambles along
the Alcantara a sweet watered river that cuts through and tumbles over the grey
volcanic rock spewed out in the distant past by Etna our ever present smoking
companion.
We are not alone. This is a working estate. Fruit trees
must be irrigated, animals attended, paths extended. There is a working day –
brought forward to accommodate the heat.
At some hour too early to be fully conscious the thump
thump thumping of the irrigation brings relief to the parched trees. As you
drift off again the workforce arrive, starting the ancient tractor breaking
your slumber with a judder and a whiff of diesel. The workforce converse soto voce. The patient dogs, there are
three, whine and bark. The sun is turning the sky red. Who would want to laze
in bed at the beginning of such a day?
Breakfast on the narrow terrace fruit, bread and coffee
while the three dogs and a thin cat hope for crumbs. We reflect on our visit to
Taormina and its breathtaking theatre built by the Greeks for plays and
modified by the Romans to make room for wild animals. The place where an
American tourist stops to compliment Jo on her choice of travelling outfit.
Taormina where Lawrence wrote Lady C and, I fancy, given the spring in the
grounds of his villa, where he wrote
A snake came to my water-trough
On a hot, hot day, and I in pyjamas for the heat,
To drink there.
On a hot, hot day, and I in pyjamas for the heat,
To drink there.
After breakfast, time to walk down to the river not to drink but to
bathe, plunging and holding the rocks to avoid being carried away – then more
relaxing and eating and reading. Is it ok to laze away the day? Should we be up
and gardening or out and absorbing culture?
Well the dogs seem happy to laze except that one has disappeared. The
rangy brown male has gone leaving his female lookalike and a more heavyset
black female – like a tall bull terrier.
When we decide eventually to walk up the valley to see the Gorge, the female
dogs come too.
It is as we climb a path up the hill that we see the snake still on the
path partly shaded by an overhanging fig.
In the deep,
strange-scented shade of the great dark carob-tree
And she was quite black and very long and...
And she was quite black and very long and...
The black dog leapt and the snake slithering at speed made it through
the fence to the orchard and in a moment the black dog was upon it – breaking
its back – worrying it, and worrying it so long that we left it and carried on.
And carrying the snake in our heads
On the day of
Sicilian July, with Etna smoking.
The voice of my education said to me
He must be killed,
For in Sicily the black, black snakes are innocent, the gold are venomous.
The voice of my education said to me
He must be killed,
For in Sicily the black, black snakes are innocent, the gold are venomous.
And not having Lawrence’s education there was shock and sadness at the
death of the snake but an awe, an admiration for the dog so decisive, focussed,
competent. And in a way the dog stood for a simpler connectedness than I can
have, just being and acting in the moment.
And as we continued on our way the black dog caught up, her belly
hanging low.
At the Gorge we found the beach and the tourists and, fast asleep on the
sand, the male dog. We paddled in the river, took our photos, woke him and
walked together home.
Mito 2016
Pleasant memories of our trip to Sicily
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