Haibun – Tenacious Perennials
When I arrived in Italy in 1970, a lot of the reconstruction had already taken place However, sometimes behind a bunch of new buildings bombed out shells still existed. In my 7th floor apartment in Savona where I lived a year after my arrival, I looked onto one of those bombed out hulks from my kitchen window.
memories of war
ghosts lurking behind homes
dragon’s teeth
After the twenty year reign of Fascism and the war that was the fruit of that political choice, Italy was a mass of rubble. Its economy was non existent. Its people downtrodden by crippling poverty. And yet, Italy arose from its ashes and each citizen arose from the dragon’s teeth to become many pledged to rebuilding the nation.
dragon’s teeth
scattered upon the land
seeds
Stone upon stone political battle after political battle, through corruption and the Mafias of various sorts, Italy arose from the ashes and rebuilt its bombed out cities. The Marshal plan helped of course, America was generous since Italy had the strongest Communist Party outside of the influence of the USSR. Above all though was the will of the Italians to overcome their century long poverty which pushed many of them into being the beggars of the Earth. They could at last dip into the wealth of the world.
seeds –
planted in poverty
sprouted by fiat
watered by children’s tears
tenacious perennials
gsk ’20
The destruction of Covid-19 on the nations is of a different entity. I don’t like to think of a disease as a war because I don’t like the way politicians are flinging that word around. Be that as it is, although things may not be as they once were, this too will pass. The protagonist of this haibun is Italy … but with variations it could be any country. Nations are not what the politicians would have us believe .. they are really people living together trying to do best they can.
