One of my aunt’s favorite sayings was, “Meglio tardi che tordi…”

but with “TI RICORDI GLI STORNI CHE A STORMI” the nonsense poet (as well as painter) Antonio “Toti” Scialoja goes much further with this little poem of his:

Do you remember the starlings, flying in flocks
in the sunsets of our beautiful days
when trains turn into night trains
surrounding Terni and its surroundings?

Beautiful sunsets that lit up Terni
reflecting the fire of the furnaces
while the skies turned into infernos
taciturn if flocks swirl.

Black flocks on the mountains of Terni
that in the evening, losing their shape
bewildered our returns
with the eternal rustling of the ashes.

Autumns and winters have passed
the flocks have come and gone
over the Nera, over Terni, over Narni
over the pears pierced by worms. poesiola: