It’s the road home.
I strained my eyes looking through the trees in the woods.
I know that from the top of the hill you can see when an ox cart or Cinelli’s black Balilla comes down, or a group of girls celebrating down the embankment, then back up, up the dirt road
that leads to the well and the magical water of Mitte.
Now I see it, a car coming down the road, and Grandma Ida says
That’s your dad
and so I run, run, run, run down the mint-lined path
I run between the snapdragons and the birches and the fiery plane trees
and the faded poplars
There he is, I see my dad, who catches me in mid-air and spins me around in the sky like a blade of grass
His steady hand carries me into the garden
Where they have cut and pruned thousands of trees
Still in his arms, he says, ‘See, Dora, that pine tree is already sick and needs
tending
I tried to hug it, the pine tree, it was like hugging my dad or an oak tree or a cardboard giant.