Italy in One Dozen Sounds
When you pull the leafy stem from the orange you bought at the market: that pop.
A Vespa scooter coming at you fast, in an alley in Rome. Vespa in Italian means wasp.
The sound of your new language, Italian, in your mouth.
A child on his way home from school with his mother, asking for a gelato.
A Venetian fish monger at his market stall packing down the ice in his display tray with the back of his ice scoop.
A congregation of locals and tourists in Assissi singing a hymn during Mass.
Your roommate singing along to her iPod.
Taxi drivers in Capri, slamming down cards on the seawall as they play poker, and laughing.
A knife, slicing through bread, as the man behind the deli counter, makes your proscuitto and mozzarella and tomato sandwich.
Different shoes on the wavy, cobblestone streets of Rome: sandals, tennis shoes, high heels, espadrilles.
The things you whisper to yourself at the end of a long day of travel.
The sound your heart makes when you first look up at the Sistine Chapel.
–Prof. Charles Israel, Jr.
