These ancient hill towns were built for defence.
Old houses in this one have two entrances
side by side: one wide for friends, one narrow
for foes – la porta dei morti.
A platoon of the retreating Wehrmacht
stopped here to murder forty partisans
at the bottom of the town by the high road,
in the square where the tourist buses turn –
Piazza dei Martiri Quaranti.
Though this is Umbria and February
is mild, wood smoke seasoning the windless air,
the cold in the Duomo is wintry still,
its paving chilling the bones of our feet.
Hanging above the ornate stone altar
is a wood carving of Christ crucified.
We emerge into brightness, and imagine,
in the eastern haze, the Adriatic.
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By David Selzer