Baptized by the Sicilian Sun: An Annual Return to Sicily
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Every Year, I become a pilgrim to Sicily.
I fold myself into a suitcase,
Toronto’s steel and glass still clinging to my skin,
and land where the air tastes of lemon and salt.
The sun is different here.
It’s not just warmth, it baptizes.
It presses its fire into my bones
until I am molten,
until the goddess I keep locked away all winter
walks out in bare feet across the hot sand.
In Sicily, every table hums with history:
tiles cracked by centuries,
walls whispering in dialects older than maps,
laughter that lingers like incense.
Here, they hand you limoncello not as a sale,
but as an offering.
A backyard lemon tree distilled into liquid sun,
and they wait, eyes bright,
to see if your tongue recognizes
the sweetness of their land.
I walk away each summer
changed, sharper, softer.
The overstated textures,
red volcanic dust,
blue Mediterranean mirrors,
ochre walls collapsing into beauty,
sear themselves into my memory.
My irises expanding to absorb every detail.
I carry them back to Toronto,
tuck them into the corners of my work.
So when winter drapes its heavy shawl,
when the sky hangs low and colorless,
I pour fire from my moka pot,
sip bitterness that tastes of Sicilian mornings.
I remember the woman I become there,
my alter ego rising like heat off stone.
And so, even in the deepest cold,
I stitch August into February,
bringing the South into the North,
so that my work, my words, my days
are brightened by the goddess
who wakes every summer
on that island of sun, sand, and sea.
Frequently asked questions
The poem describes an annual return to Sicily as a kind of pilgrimage that transforms the traveler. The Sicilian sun is described as baptizing, pressing fire into bones until the speaker becomes molten and a different version of herself emerges, described as a goddess who walks in bare feet on hot sand. It's a portrait of how a place can hold a version of you that your daily life doesn't.
By making coffee from a moka pot and tasting the bitterness as a Sicilian morning, by stitching August into February through the sensory memories carried home. The poem argues that what a transformative place gives you does not have to end when you leave. The work, words, and days can be brightened by the self you became there.
The poem describes Sicily's sensory intensity, the red volcanic dust, the blue Mediterranean mirrors, and the limoncello offered as offering rather than sale, as searing themselves into memory in ways that expand who the speaker is. The alter ego who wakes there is sharper, softer, and more fully herself than the one who navigates Toronto steel and glass.
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