Stephen Barile

Underground Gardens

Legend was,
After a quarrel with his father,
He left Sicily behind
And immigrated to America.
That he left a woman in Filari
To whom he vowed to return and marry.
No one knew but he,
Of his experience tunneling.
In Boston he worked as a tunnel-digger.
New York City, he excavated
For the subway leading to New Jersey.
His secretly held a dream
Of growing his own citrus,
Orange, lemon and grapefruit trees.
Seeking a Mediterranean climate
He came to Fresno, California.
Working as a farm laborer
In local vineyards
He saved his money,
Buying a parcel of land
Sight unseen.
Under a veneer of dirt
Was impervious sedimentary rock,
Ill-suited for farming.
In scorching Fresno heat
As high as 120-degree afternoons,
He dug a cellar to escape.
Then carved out adjacent rooms
In the hardpan sediment,
Inspired by ancient catacombs
He marveled in Filari, Sicily.
His subterranean villa,
A far-reaching underground world
Nearly one-hundred chambers,
Passages, courts, and patios
Dug with instinct and memory.
He worked at night,
Labored with a hand-pick,
Shovel, wheelbarrow,
And Fresno-scraper
Pulled by a single mule.
There was a kitchen, bath,
Bedchamber, library, and chapel,
And masonry archways he built.
Fruit-bearing trees were planted
below ground, extending above
The terrain through openings.
The woman he left in Filari?
She refused to live
In the world of his making,
Underground in hole.
He became a recluse,
Completely alone thereafter.

Stephen Barile, a Fresno, California native, attended Fresno City College, Fresno Pacific University, and California State University, Fresno. He is a long-time member of the Fresno Poet’s Association. Stephen Barile lives and writes in Fresno. His poems have been published extensively.