Allan Lake

Heart Health in Sicily

 

‘Heart-breakingly beautiful’ is a hyperbolic

expression which would make more sense

as its opposite and lose no alliteration

if it were ‘heart-breakingly horrible’.

Sounds positive-emphatic when you realise

expression must have crossed an idiomatic

border into romantic self-destruct mode.

That is, until you stand at the seawall and

look back at ancient Greece on the island

of Ortygia, at Syracuse on a cloudy morning

while insistent sea repeats all the philosophy

you need now. Sure, the Romans eventually

overran it but then it overran them.

One loses sense of time and self while

roaming through those narrow, curving

streets best navigated by the gull of thought.

You hear/try not to hear luggage wheels

bounce on ancient stones. You see/try

not to see rubbish removers focussed

on the plastic-packaged present.

A worryingly thin designer woman jogs,

dog owners walk designer dogs, smokers

observe rituals. You are a tourist, guilty

of trying to ignore tourists by being low

cloud, unattracted to fridge magnets.

You float into the church in front

of Chiosco della Cattedrale where

they serve sinful gelato ‘to die for’.

Another expression that shouldn’t

but –  considering saturated fat –

does make sense. I take a photo

of The Madonna beneath heavenly

dome as a mere donna nearby poses

for a selfie, adding her own wistful

visage to that faded fantasy.

All rather heart-breakingly beautiful

and there’s still Noto and Marzamemi

tomorrow. It’s almost more than

an aged and damaged heart can bare.