Words and Poetry by Giada Trebeschi.

A fool, a fool!

I have met a fool in the forest,

Who laid him down and basked him in the sun,

And railed on lady Fortune in good terms,

In good set terms, and yet a motley fool.

Oh worthy fool!

It is my only suit.

Look at me, it is clear: I am a fool

And so I must have liberty

Withal, as large a charter as the wind

To blow on whom I please, for so fools have:

And they that are most galled with my folly,

They most must laugh.

Give me leave to speak my mind, and I will through and through

Cleanse the foul body of th’infected world,

If they will patiently receive my medicine.

As a Muse of fire, that would ascend

To the brightest heaven of invention,

I will dare

to show in this magic place

All the world’s as a stage

And all the men and women as merely players.

They have their exits and their entrances,

And one man in his time plays many parts.

Admit me Chorus in this history

And let me cipher to this great account

On your imaginary forces work.

Suppose within the girdle of these pages

Are now confined all the caracthers of your fantasy: numerous, restless,

Shouting as much as to blow the head.

But now peace, peace! Let me ascend to the pulpit. Listen to me.

Peace I said! Listen to the fool speaking to your soul.

From an old train slowly climbing the Alps I observe the landsape. The snow is already covering the peaks, the waterfalls are long tongues of cristals sparkling under the morning sun.

I am now on a coast looking at the sea. It´s dawn and the water reflects the orange rays of the new borning sun. I sit on the beach and I wonder myself how should I describe it.

On that same beach last summer I was hearing the laugh of children playing with the sand, the smell of coconut oils hit my nose and the shining of the sun rays on the sea was smiling at me.

I sit  now at my writingtable and see in my head all of those landscapes again. I want to describe them, I wish my words could give to the reader the same emotions, the same feelings I had when I saw them the first time.

Describing a landscape is not easy. I don´t want it to be watched like a postcard. I don´t want it to be like a photo that reproduces the houses, the boats, the mountains, the sea but that doesn´t tell anything about emotions.

I want the reader to see it with my eyes; my words have to touch his soul.

I will not simply describe it; I will try to paint with words and each of them will be a brushstroke on the paper.

In the photo: Tree of Life; Giada Trebeschi, Carpe Diem, Tournée 2006.

A dialogue in between Time and Life.

WINTER

Life: It is strange. Getting older I become more tollerant. I don´t see any mistake that I didn´t do as well.

Time: You have the experience of those that saw a lot of things.

Life: Yes. And on the way I learned that you can´t see but with the heart: what is essential is invisible for the eyes.

Time: It is a pity that you learn the lessons only when you don´t need it anymore.

Life: Sometimes you are really annoying! Can´t you, for once, try to be a little bit more understanding? You perfectly know I do not have a lot of time left.

Time: I am sorry. I didn´t want to make you angry.

Life: It is strange.

Time: What?

Life: I have been a boy and a girl, a bush, a bird and a silent fish in the waters of the sea… I lived for years and now all my life crowds in only one hour.

Time: Only one hour is left…

Life: You accompanied me for all this years and you didn´t yet tell me your name.

Time: You really din´t understand who I am?

Life: Maybe, but I don´t have any Time left for this… and anyway you told me, how could you otherwise know that I just have one hour left? (beat) I am so tired, I feel so old…

Time: Only your body is old.

Life: Old bodies are nothing but wither leaves on the tree of life. And when the last leaves will be gone, the tree will stand naked in front of the sky.

Time: You look upset. Are you crying?

Life: Yes, but they are tears of joy. In those dried and undressed branches I see the green to come (Death brings Life away).

A little young girl enters from the other side and nears Time.

Young-Life: Excuse me, did you maybe see my grandma?

Time: Yes, she just left.

Young-Life: But she was supposed to wait for me!

Time: She couldn´t. She asked me to take care of you. (Time takes the hand of Young-Life) Soon or later you will meet again (They start walking together).

Young-Life: When?

Time: In the future.

Young Life: What is future?

Time: Future is intuition and anticipation.

Young-Life: Who are you to know all this things?

Time: Who do you think I am?

Young-Life: An old man.

Time: It is true. But I have been young as well once… (exeunt)

Have you ever been caught under a thunderstorm?

The cold rain dropping on summer clothes that stick sensually on the skin, the sky suddenly dark and menacing, the sound of thunder that seems coming exactly from behind you…

It is exciting and fun but it always brings also athe feeling of a certain uneasyness and fear.

I think it is exactly because of its mixture of excitement and fear that this is recognized as one of the most common topos in specific literature moments. Fear and excitement together, what a perfect match for thrilling readers quitely sitting on their confortable chairs!

As soon as in a novel we read about a thunderstorm we perfectly know that something scaring but exciting is going to happen and we are ready to the most dreadful events. Events that will bring the characters through something that will definitely change their lives and will have its epiphany only when the thunderstorm is over.

Thinking of it, in this very beginning of summer I’d like to wish everyone to enjoy the feeling of excitement that will certainly catch you every time there will be a thunderstorm!

An old lady sitting near the fireplace. The room is dark, the only light is the one coming from the fire; it is cold outside. A group of people and children are sitting around her. They are silent, nearly keeping their breath not to disturb her. She speaks quietly, they listen.

The old lady is telling a story. A story that without her memory would be lost forever. But now she is telling it, she is bringing old forgotten characters to a new life. From now on their adventures will be burnt in those children´s soul and they will be renewing for the generations to come.

They will remember the magic atmosphere that she creates, they will use her same rhythm in telling the story, her same pauses, her same intriguing charme. They will do it to make their own grandchildren feel the same emotions they felt, dream as well as they did that very night around the fireplace.

The memory will not be lost. The fairies of the tale will be alive forever.

A dialogue in between Time and Life.

AUTUMN

Life: Running away is useless.

Time: Running away from what?

Life: From Death. Didn´t you learn it as well? Death reaches also the running man.

Time: How melancholic you are today!

Life: Maybe it is because in that end of summer all the things had something of passionate and sweet…

Time: Your voice is broken… I can see the tears rising up to your eyes…

Life: I don´t know where  this sadness comes from but it rises as the sea on the black and nacked rocks…

Time: Nevertheless you smile.

Life: Yeah, I smile, shipwrecking in this sea is sweet.

Time: What are you doing? Dreaming?

Life: Yes.

Time: But Life is not a dream!

Life: Please, let my heart intoxicate with a lie!

Time: You can´t. Remember that dreams are just dreams.

Life: My hands are starting getting knotty as a hazel branches.

Time: You know that hazel branches are since ever used as a divining rod to find water. And water is life.

Life: But it is also death.

Time: Yes, but then it becomes life again. Enough now. Look instead at the red of those leaves shining under the declining sun. Doesn´t it look warm and wrapping as Love´s embrace?

Life: Maybe you are right. A sun ray seems to be enough to sweep many shadows away. I am cold now.

Time: I know. Winter is coming.

I saw myself running around with the big dog of the house, I was probably four or five years old.

My little fingers were painting on the wall of my room a  smiling yellow sun. I thought it was beautiful but the others didn´t think it that way. I got punished for at least one week. No ice-cream, no bicycle rides around the farm yard.

I whispered important secrets into my cousin´s ear. She did the same with me. We promised we would have always been there to help each other. I am happy to say that in the following years we kept that promise.

A huge red and white cake appeared on the door of my room with 10 little burning candles on it. I wished I could remember all of it forever.

And I did.

I do.

Every time I smell the fragrance of the strawberry tart I make the way my grandma taught me.

A dialogue in between Time and Life.

SUMMER

Time: Live and experiment because everything, sweet or bitter, sour or hot, has to be tasted. And learn! God gave you two ears and one mouth to listen at least the double of what you say.

Life: Minutes are like the sand, we are not supposed to let them slide without derive gold.

Time: Do you think you did it till now?

Life: Maybe… and anyway does it matter to you? Why do you ask me?

Time: Because I am a curious old man.

Life: This I knew! You are always nagging me and I don´t even know your name!

Time: I am just an observer… and why are you interested in my name? What is in a name?

Life: Questions again!

Time: All right, I am sorry… Do you know what time is?

Life: Are you now trying to change topic?

Time: Please answer me, then I´ll tell you who I am.

Life: Ok, ok… Time is that thing made of hours, minutes and seconds that you can know if you look at your watch.

Time: Then, if I stop the watch, I stop time.

Life: Don´t be silly! Time can´t be stopped! It is an immaterial thing!

Time: How can it be a thing if it is immaterial?

Life: Don´t be so punctilious! Time, that is immaterial - is it ok like this? - so time, that is immaterial, is a movement made of past and future.

Time: But if it is made of past and future, one is not existing any more when the other one is not existing yet.

Life: And?

Time: That means that time doesn´t exist!

Life: Now you really confused me! I perfectly knew what time was before you asked me! (thinking) Do you know that before you asked  me I never thought about it?

Time: About what?

Life: Time passing by. And we are here waiting. Like leaves on a tree in autumn.

Somewhere I heard that artists do it better.

I don´t know if it is true but it seems there is a deep possibility in it.

Coreographers and dancers, for example, focus their all life and work on the research of beauty and passion through the body. A body that they know how to use and move, a body that they use to communicate and express art. Why shouldn´t this same body be great in the art of love?

Painters express their inner feelings with the strenght of colours and drawings that they are able to use as if they were an extension of their own fingers, arm and heart. If their hands are able to create beauty why shouldn´t this same hands be absolutely fantastic while caressing the body of their lover?

Musicians and composers have an inner sensitivity for the magic of music and are able to stimulate the deepest emotions through sounds, why shouldn´t they be able to touch their mistress so as they do with their violin or piano?

Writers can imagine the most incredible stories, they are masters in the art of creating emotions from words why shouldn´t they be amazing in temptating and stimulating the fantasy of their partners?

I can´t tell if every artist owns this particular skills but I think that the real ars amandi lies deeply in those souls that know the art of arousing the deepest and primordial instincts.

Travel with a book under your arm keeps you company.

A book read in solitude allows you to travel in the labirinths of imagination.

But a book about a “life journey” can be initiating.

Ulysses in the Odissey, Marco Polo in Il Milione, Dante in the Divina Commedia, Jack Kerouac on his road 66 or Santiago in the Alchimist are all looking for something that they will get just through experience, through a passage in life, through some kind of initiation. And reading their stories the reader is led to follow the same journey to learn the same things and even more.

Characters as Ulysses testify that the interest of the topos of travel will never lose its appeal both for writers and readers. They follow a journey and “on the road” they add their own way of feeling and learning giving to each literary voyage every time a different perspective that renews each time its initiating power.