I don’t require an alarm clock to wake me in the morning. I rise with the eagerness of a child and the first twittering of birds. You know, there is nothing as fine as the dew sweet hours and no light so heavenly as the first born moment cresting deliciously: I am surely new with each turn of the world. My father toiled on this plot of Italian earth for fifty years or more. Those days were not good for winemakers. But for me it is joyous. Hard work, of course but I am greatly more for each moments focus. My land, strung with vines and decorated with Cyprus is the single most important place upon the earth. I walk it, each delightful day, noticing the minucia, the seasons play and the plants considered response. I do believe they are happy in their growth, flush with greenliness and health for all my careful tending and my gentle approach to the matter of their feeling: I greatly enjoy their being with this glad, succulent heart of mine. I wonder, am I rooted to this place, for I would not leave its ever calling pull upon my soul’s domain and would likely yearn with each terrible footstep into misadventure’s far away? I wonder too, if we are joined, my humanity yoked to the richness of this soil and all that is drawn so willingly? This is my home, among the vines: father to their needs, recipient of their riches, lover of the being we have become.

And the wine? Could it it be less the true wonderment, or measure less than joy, or be less than divinity made earthly? Well, I shall not tell what only a taste can convey.

© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015.