The Mist

A poem about home and where it came from

This morning I’m sharing another poem that’s close to my heart (a couple of weeks ago I shared about French Like Wild Blackberries).

I wrote this poem, The Mist, after visiting my Nonno at the hospital. After ongoing falls he was being cared for in a room with photos of family, a stuffed dog, and some of his sailing books. At one point during our visit, my dad mentioned “Willow Mist:” it was the name my Nonna gave to the house that Nonno designed and had built. I think it was the paint color of the house too, but it became something all its own. I still find myself calling their home and town "Willow Mist,” though it isn’t anymore without them there.

On this particular visit, Nonno didn’t know what my dad was talking about when he spoke of that place.

At that time, my Nonna still lived there, mostly alone. But Nonno and Nonna would still ask about each other every few minutes. By the time they were in their 90s, they had been together for nearly 70 years. And for my whole childhood, that was at Willow Mist.

This poem draws from my memories there—the smells, the sounds, the performances we used to do as kids for the whole family.

Years later, when we visited Nonno at the hospital, my sister and I put together small photo books with images of the rooms and of family and brought them with us. Flipping through together, it was a photo of the library that finally jogged his memory—it had a sliding ladder for the tall shelves like Beauty and the Beast. And the final quote of the poem is exactly what he told us pointing at the photo.

Earlier this year, my Nonno and Nonna were living in separate facilities (for different sets of needs) when they both passed within 24 hours of one another, home again.

The Mist

'What’s this place called Willow
Mist everyone keeps talking about?’

This place called home you
Built with two hands

Designs on a drafting table
Filled with wood and brick and

Stone like a body becoming. This
Place where your Caralouisa

Waits for you, wonders when you’re
Coming to sit by the fireplace

Again. This place that holds
Years, laughter, spilled red wine,

Scarves and sauces, love and bitter
Words–the things of la famiglia.

Maybe you still feel somewhere
In your chest that it’s a beautiful

Place when you close your eyes, maybe
You still hear the piano and

Smell and taste home. Perhaps
The heart can remember what the mind doesn’t.

You point to the library in
The photo, remembering, 

‘This is worth a million dollars to me,’
You say from the hospital chair. 

Originally Version Published: The Rising Phoenix Review (Dec 2022)