Meeting Benches World art in all forms

OUTLANDER The year is 1945. Claire Randall, a former combat nurse, is just back from the war and reunited with her husband on a second honeymoon when she walks through a standing stone in one of the ancient circles that dot the British Isles. Suddenly she is a Sassenach, an “outlander”, in a Scotland torn by war and raiding border …

If you’re planning a trip to Sicily, add this information to your program. Yes, certainly worth a visit the mill of Infersa, what – together with two other mills – is part of a themed walk in the salt marshes “Ettore e Infersa”. Coming, discover the visitor center and shop the rooms, you can give yourself a gastronomic tasting, but …

IN MY LIFE AS A FOX In my life as a fox I was everything and everything, I was even light to bite, I was the sun of my immaculate face. I did not know my name, and it was just constantly there, where the leg touches the ground. In my life as a fox, I was hungry and the …

STRESSED OUT: Twenty One Pilots I wish I found some better sounds no one’s ever heard, I wish I had a better voice that sang some better words, I wish I found some chords in an order that is new, I wish I didn’t have to rhyme every time I sang, I was told when I get older all my …

PRIDE AND PREJUDICE Jane Austen was able to investigate and tell the most varied nuances of the human soul to the point that her novel is engaging and well today in 203 years away. Her books can be viewed most simply as eerily good romance novels, more broadly as sharp critiques of nineteenth-century vanity, cruelty and folly, and–broadest of all–as …

PRAYER Our baby’s heart, on the sixteen-week scan, was a fluttering bird, held in cupped hands. I thought of St Kevin, hands opened in prayer, and a bird of the hedgerow nesting there, and how he’d borne it, until the young had flown, and I prayed: this new heart must outlive my own. (Kathleen Jamie)    

OF LOVE The one who says “I Love You”, is a sad fiddler, who has lost his song. Only if Love itself, had a tongue! A thousand, blissful hoopoes, laugh inside of your eyes. Thousands of silent canaries, stay still in my throat. If only Love itself, could have a word! The one who says, “I Love You”, is a …

LIE AND TRUTH There was a mysterious land; its long southern parts extended to the great sea. No one knew much about it. People in the land had a strong belief that they lived in a unique land of peace and wealth. So, ever happy they were and they had a positive habit of smiling. This beautiful myth misled them …

If you have planned your trip to Spain, remember that there is a path – the ruta de Don Qujote – which retraces the places described by Cervantes, that is, the ability to linger just off of each of the twelve mills (all arranged on the rocky Colle Calderico, all baptized with names extracted from the work of Cervantes). Coming, …

WHEN A BRANCH CROSSES OVER THE WALL When a drooping willow branch crossed over the wall, it may not have been her work alone. If the distant root, whose face she hadn’t seen even once, and the flowers and leaves–who had put their flesh together and washed their hands of each other, hadn’t supported her as one body, the branch …

BETWEEN FRIENDS Beautiful is silent together, even better is to laugh together, under the silk cloth of the sky, down into the moss, bent over a book, laughing loud and friendly between friends, and find out the whiteness of the teeth. If I have succeeded, we remain silent. If I failed, we laugh about, and we do still worse, worse …

LETTER TO A FRIEND Let me tell you about these sheep. In many ways they are like the ocean creatures you know so well: in the benevolence of the creator, they bear children, each has a face of a lad or an old man. These days they are on the hills, a tight flock, a warm flock, with a thin …

A Paradise in miniature, is a place hard to forget. One of the most beautiful Greek islands, with only 4 square kilometers of surface. It is a quiet island, no traffic, but with many beautiful beaches (and an elegant nightlife for those who do not sleep). The inhabitants have always lived by fishing, but they do their best to refurbish …

CATFISH IN THE WOODS My dog suddenly runs off, slipping the leash startled by a wild beast. Without blowing a conch, the giant fish-god tosses and turns, in the deep ocean bed, heaving his bloated belly in his millenary sleep. The mischievous catfish plays dirty tricks, belching out muddy billows over homes, rice paddies boats, cars, nuclear plants, guzzling them …