Creative Voices

By Federica Murgolo / Staff Writer || Edited by Vittoria Caroli

Everybody be silent!

I need to invoke

the Nymph of Fresh Waters,

so she can speak the voice of us all

and the one of the greatest of Mothers

who offered humanity Her powerful womb.

No matter how much She still suffers

for those two siblings and a caring wolf,

when Her water broke,

great poets and wise emperors were born:

immortal heroes and villains in the history of our world.

A commander got stabbed on the Ides of March,

betrayed by those he used to call his own;

an old chapter ends, a new one will start!

Every time our Mother lost,

and every time She won,

the Nymph carefully wrote,

these stories in prose,

with comments and notes,

in the water that now contains

all Her tears and all Her pains.

Listen now to the River that never dies!

It flows

beneath our eyes

and inside our bones,

the River of Endless Desires,

False Hopes, and White Lies.

Some people called it Tiber

while seven kings used to fight for their thrones.

And when Aeneas touched our Mother’s soul

he smiled, looked at Her and told

his people, “I now call,

this new land, Rome.”

In the same way, yesterday, I saw

my friends and said “I now call,

this new place, Home.”