Darling Pietro,

We are supposed to be on a short working holiday

– but cannot stop thinking of

Y-O-U

After the tulip tree that is really a sort of magnolia

erupted in its pink-and-white-and-magenta concatenation,

but before the wild mustard sang out in waves of rippling yellow

— weeks overdue —

Y-O-U

— perfectly on time.

Soon, you will be whizzing around that curve … as we, too many thousands of miles away, are gazing at …

You, Pietro, born into a family that knows the secret-of-secrets better than most:

Keep a close eye on beauty, wherever you are, no matter what happens,

and it will see you through.

Though we, sadly, are no poets, we thought of a fine old one with words in the spirit of what we would like to say –

Labour is blossoming or dancing where

The body is not bruised to pleasure soul.

Nor beauty born out of its own despair,

Nor blear-eyed wisdom out of midnight oil.

O chestnut-tree, great-rooted blossomer,

Are you the leaf, the blossom or the bole?

O body swayed to music, O brightening glance,

How can we know the dancer from the dance?

— Among Schoolchildren, William Butler Yeats

Benvenuto, Pietro.