THINGS THESE HILLS WILL NEVER KNOW
Valdottavo, Italy
No matter how far into the hills you go
there is another village. This one is wrapped
in fog, like the last village. The road
between them goes up, then down.
Narrow buildings stand along a creek.
The people here say words that are pleasing:
buon giorno, prego, grazie.
In Italian, nostalgia means
‘homesick,’ in Greek, ‘a return home,’
in English, ‘a wistful desire,
a sentimental longing.’
It is a trip to the coast after five days of rain
to see the cliffs, the rocks, the pressing waves.
Christine Yurick’s poems have appeared in Barbaric Yawp, Schuylkill Valley Journal, Autumn Sky, Tulane Review and forthcoming in American Arts Quarterly. She is the founding editor of Think Journal. This poem was written during a residency at Studio Camnitzer, in Valdottavo Italy.
823 on High 