I remember being a small boy and staying awake during the nap hour of pre-school, since I never liked going to sleep and its calling forth of that inevitable and so sorrowful end to a day, much as it still seems to do now. So I stayed awake in the dark room, we all did, giggling and playing tricks and never giving in, staying awake always.
I think earlier of the ancient, not really ancient, but warm and worn in citadel-like sleeping quarters as the place where a generation of children slept under the watchful and caring eyes of old European nuns. The kids were like the Lost Boys for some wholesome, Italian old Wendy. It is really like a dream this movie 8 1/2.
Cinema, and the great Italian urban canyon that leave me spellbound with its shadowy figures dancing in a lingering sun as I think ‘oh great shades of wonderful Italy!’
But I think of these things as I walk now along with my friend, a fellow musician, a blues player and young Sicilain along Ventura Boulevard. He’s talking to me about some trouble with his girlfriend who’s moving back to the east coast as he laments tonight over ‘what love can do to the poor soul once thought to be so wise, and that now feels like such a fool.’ He’s a man usually full of all sorts of life but now he’s beaten down and discouraged no doubt. But he will go on no matter how bleak things seem. He must never give up, even on a woman. Especially on such a woman. I remember similar feelings from some time ago.
I remember a time like it was no more than a year ago and the girl on the cruise ship. I was just outta high school and she was Italian or Greek or both and I remember the wine and the ancient roads and hidden walkways all as a haunting and cool prologue to a startling and magnificent second act of a young life. But first comes the confrontation with an elusive demon, though it does not mean to be so.
The Pope awaits in a quiet garden as a cool breeze blows on through. He hears only the soft sounds of a nearby fountain, as he closes his eyes and tries to hear the birds singing to him. He tries to remember his childhood memories. He wants to get lost in them as so many of his guests do with their own memories and dreams. Now he stops.
Civitas Dei. Civitas Diaboli. “He who is not in the City of God belongs in the City of the Devil.”
–
last crossing
So then save us dear priest, and
Remember my brother who killed a man.
It was not his fault for he was set up.
Remember, dear priest, my elder sister.
A good mother, despite the rumors.
Keep her in your mind. She can take care of the children and she’ll make ends meet. So remember her too.
Remember me, dear friend, for I have sinned.
But haven’t we all?
Remember us all, in the short time you have, for we are all in your hands.
Try and keep up, priest.
—
Ren Michael 