LATE WINTER AT THE SACRO MONTE OF CREA ~ Alan Bern

Winter visitors are few, the air fresh, often with a cold wind. The persistent, cheerful park guide explained that the great novelist, poet, and translator of American literature, Cesare Pavese, lived through part of World War II in the town just below, the Serralunga di Crea, self-exiled to avoid both fascist conscription and the difficult decision of joining the partisans. And depressed again, dumped again by a woman he loved. Solitudinous again.