A Trip to Agrigento

An early morning on a midwinter’s day

I waited for the bus down in Giammoro

Taking me all the way to Agrigento

To see the feast of almond trees in bloom

Passengers were mostly retirees

Picked-up from Barcellona to Messina

A young man joined us at Spadafora

Sitting down in the seat right next to mine.

He kept a serious face throughout the trip

Didn’t say a word till reaching Taormina

Suddenly he turned in my direction:

“My name is Matthew, what is your name?”

He kept on talking, some words were indistinct,

About his family, twelve years in Milano,

His return to Sicily, his job three days a week,

“Right, right,” would follow every date

My head was turned away towards the window

Watching changing shapes of my Trinacria

As verdant citrus groves south of Catania

Turned into barren hills approaching Enna

Wheat and hay with green covered the soil

The hills appeared like cleanly-shaven heads

Abandoned homes, scattered through the land,

Reminded me of Sikels and of Greeks

Matthew was still talking, “Right, right,”

I kept on watching Sicily from the window

Road sign read: you are in Caltanissetta

“At ten we’ll be in Agrigento, right, right.”

Coming back we stopped outside the city

To visit Pirandello’s resting place

We saw the old pine tree, by lightening struck

The rock his cremated body holds inside

Of his native home we explored the rooms

With the reverence reserved for a shrine

Matthew kept on saying: “Pirandello, Luigi,”

Dates of his birth and of his death, “Right, right.”

At Spadafora, he bid farewell to all

To each one gave thanks and said goodbye

He walked through the aisle of the old bus

To announce the future journeys in his plan

Then he turned to me to bid farewell,

“We are friends,” he said, “right, right?”

“Right, right,” unwittingly I replied

He waived at me and smiled