If I Spoken Better Italian by Lucia De Luca

If I Spoke Better Italian

Transcript:

If I Spoke Better Italian

When the dementia started

you looked for leftover traces of your wisdom in me,

but I am missing the words

to validate you to the extent that you deserve

Italian was my first language yet, with a lack of practice,

it is a friend from long ago who I know is grown up now

but who I can only picture as a child

We are learning that we do not always remember

the most important parts of ourselves

I can imagine that it is a scary thing

to redistribute the time capsules of yourself that were

hidden in the home you had to sell,

the duplex you practiced bravery in for forty-five years-

hidden on the inside of your kitchen cupboard door,

under multiple layers of white paint,

and in the hems of the dresses hung in your closet

I can imagine that it takes courage you didn’t choose 

to take these time capsules

and trust that the people you bury them in will keep them safe

If I spoke better Italian, I would tell you that

I know the Italian you speak is slang

and that you cut off the last syllable of almost every word,

but it still sounds poetic to me

I would toast to the memory of the four feet of you

surrounded by your garden composed of six-foot-tall plants-

you sticking long sticks into to the soil

and using string to tie your tomato plants to them

so that they could keep standing

You grew things

Our whole family has surpassed you in height,

but whether surrounded by your plants,

your children, or your grandchildren,

your presence has always been the tallest,

something to do with the endless amounts of string

you have to mend what is broken

If I spoke better Italian, I would verbalize all you have given-

I know that at some point in your few short years in school

you made a small pot out of clay

and when a boy from your rural Italian village on top of a hill

loved it so much he asked if he could have it,

you gave it to him

When your late husband wanted to move to Montreal

to be with his already immigrated family members,

you packed with him

When I asked you if you could make me an apron

for a costume for a school project,

you cut an old bed sheet and gave up a bit of your string

to make me one

In the middle of the table in your old kitchen,

there was a time capsule with no lid

filled with generations of kindness

Like with the meals you served us,

second helpings from this box were always encouraged -

enforced

Nonna, I promise, I heard you every time you told me, fai la brav’;

I will always strive to do what is good

As one of the inheritors of your strength and generosity,

I see it as one of my responsibilities to ensure that the

time capsule you never hid

is always waiting, ready, and

filling faster than it empties

Executive Producers

Daniel Henson

Karolina Ristevski

Elliot Cameron

Sue White