Away from the noise crowded streets of Sorrento
we walked an orchard lane between lemon trees,
the plump yellow fruit of the Amalfi coast
hung as daylit lanterns among branches.
A woman our age but much older
yelled at us from within her black dress
words we did not know but knew the tone.
Obedient to her as the guardian of the grove,
we turned and walked the way we had come.
The lemons were hers,
her history, her labor, her trees.
We inhaled and held for a breath length
the sweetly sour aroma of her birthright.
Returning to city traffic
we breathed the exhausted scent of ours.
Sorrento, Italy/2010