Bounties of all kinds, even when my body falters, the bounty of the Australian place, its sun and sea, its sweeping coasts and optimistic cities, shaping the blue sky day by day. The wonder of my life with La Professoressa, now away in Austin, Texas, meeting with students and colleagues, bringing to them her days with the People's Tribunal on War Crimes from her work in Cambodia, the sweet presence of our Cello who stands over me when I fall in the middle of the night, his breathing a beacon, so small but so sturdy in his offerings.
Here in West Brunswick I have found all my Tuscanies,
Vincenzo helping with the peach harvest, il mio amico, showing me how to wrap the peach- filled tree in its own veil and then knowing I was all alone came over to help me uncover it while, Anna, his wife sends her message over the backyard worn wood fence, "Joanna, you alright?" I too am wrapped in the care of my Fitzgibbon Avenue neighbors,
From histories in Calabria, Hong Kong, Chile, Vietnam, Sicily, and Macedonia come the home grown gifts, sun reimagined in a hundred ways,
Yes, I had to leave one world behind to find another, but that is what makes this bounty of caring so rich; it had to happen quickly. I have found Pinchus and his family, Virginia offering zucchini fritters
and Felix, her 14 year old son, sharing his love of cooking with me and always, Ruby, who comes over
to discuss her writing, her thinking, with me one afternoon a week and I am honored. For that short while, all my life as a teacher lives again as I learn and learn from Ruby.
Let me end this moment with the land again, this island of ancient peoples and geographies, where stones as old as the universe stud embankments on ancestral lands and where new migrants dream their possibilities of harvest:
From the most grand sweep of sky to the tabletop
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