It’s has been a while so let’s get up to date as things have changed.

The days are getting longer and both sun and rain more intense as are things indoors. Our routine continues and is manageable because of our carers, Nuria and Ana who deal with the physical problems we increasingly face – washing, showering, toilet control. I do the cooking, cleaning, washing and ironing (of which there is an inevitably increasing tonnage) and keeping the finca under control (which also increaseth during the spring).

Lucia is still amenable and thus easy to deal with. The people at the Day Centre of fond of her because of this. They have many much more difficult customers. They keep her busy with exercises both physical and mental as far as she is able. She goes down 5 days a week and a car comes to collect her now to save my morning and evening trips down in the car. I think it would cost as much in petrol as they charge for this helpful service. This leaves me time to waste the day away on my own. I have almost stopped writing and sit at the computer looking at the screens wondering where the energy – or rather the creative passivity – used to come from.

It is a lonely life however many interactions I have. Lucia is passive, does what she is prompted to do and says nothing that makes any sense. Her physical abilities are also deteriorating. Eating is more of a battle, fingers to the fore. To think how fastidious she used to be. She returns at six and we sit down to have an aperitivo in front of the telly and then a bit of supper at seven, often just an omelette and some fruit, then a bit more telly – amazing how little there is on Netflix to watch – until Nuria comes at 8.30 to deal with the necessities and put her to bed.

I think that, when we die, they should burn everything in the room including my body and that of Lucia. Take everything out into the Piazza and put them to the flame as they did by order of the Vatican to everything of Keats including the wallpaper. Noche de San Juan. Ah Keats. I spent, perhaps, too much of my life on the man. He was my doctoral thesis and when published was the only book of mine that has ever sold. Unlike Mozart, he really did die young. I am convinced that, had he lived, we would now remember him as a playwright who wrote some poems when he was young. Exactly, in fact, as we now remember Shakespeare, his hero. Sunshine on the Spanish Steps and shadows across the ceiling of his little room. Severn’s ink drawing of him dying. I shall die easy. Thoughts as I struggle into my 80s and as Lucia struggles.

I went at his request
beyond the ruined Aurelian wall
in sight of Gaius Cestius’ monument
where flocks of goats bleat at the easy air
where he will foretell Shelley’s heart
had drowned his open book
was found and burned –
and my remains besides.
The sun in Italy is dry and clean.
And hard.
Youth deserves better
and bitter time to swim
the love ordained and broken.
Sweating at my side, consumed by fate,
my feeble brush atoning for too much,
do I ink out the image of his spell
awaiting all the devils that will come upon me.

And now
the darkening hour
to so uneasy die
with no redemption or philosophy
towards the daisies wait above him;
“Lift me up”
and
somewhat quieter than before
a howl rending
diminuendo’s temple
of glissando toward the bass
of his expected silence.

Never been quite sure about this silence which is, indeed, a howl and echoes down the ages. I feel it very close at the moment. Loneliness comes in many colours but perhaps it is the physical that touches us least (by which I mean most) closely. Being touched without being touched is a pain beyond pain.