ABC Wednesday
May the 9th, 2012

The letter this week is Q and I love all the words it stands for, except maybe querulous.......

But quicken and quirky and quack and quiz and quince and quotient are all quite pleasant words.

Here is a picture of the Quince that is blossoming in my garden right now, - as we speak!

And here is a poem written by Salvatore Quasimodo who was born in 1901 of Sicilian parents.  He was an engineer with the Italian Government, but in 1930 he gave up this post and in 1938 he became the editor of the weekly magazine, Tempo and three years later was appointed to the chair of Italian Literature in Milan.

He was the recipient of many literary prizes.  In 1953, together with Dylan Thomas, he was awarded the Etna-Taormina International Prize in Poetry, and in 1959 he won the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Street in Agrigentum

There is still the wind that I remember

firing the manes of horses, racing,

slanting, across the plains,

the wind that stains and scours the sandstone,

and the heart of gloom columns, telamons,

overthrown in the grass.  Spirit of the ancients, grey

with rancour, return on the wind,

breathe in that feather-light moss

that covers those giants, hurled down by heaven.

How alone in the space that's still yours!

And greater, your pain, if you hear, once more,

the sound that moves, far off, towards the sea,

where Hesperus streaks the sky with morning

the jews-harp vibrates

in the waggoner's mouth

as he climbs the hill of moonlight, slow,

in the murmur of Saracen olive trees.

I like the rhythm and the imagery.

For more stories about the letter Q do quicken yourself over here to ABC Wednesday and see what Mrs. Nesbitt and her quirky helpers have for you to enjoy.