Ode to a Fig

The closing of week two of my quarter in Rome. It's been an incredible experience so far, and the best is just the daily experience of living- getting lost in the expansive alleyways outside my door, hearing the lilt of Italian being spoken rapidly all around me, discovering doorways and arches in corners that I have passed by dozens of times and would have sworn held no secrets.
I also have quite a few pages in my notebook to show for it. this first assignment was to find something in the market place that we had no knowledge of, exchange it with someone, and then write about it entirely in metaphor. Thus:

Ode to a Fig
little leather mermaid purse:
crows feet growing from a bough.
Pensive as a walnut, your
cranial creases, furrowed brows
are hidden valleys dusted with sweet snow.
age smells sweet and sickly,
a sickle shape, a cell,
a shell ensnaring spiders eggs
where more old gnomes will grow.

Most of these are works in progress that I post as I go. With any luck, this blog could serve as a way of tracking my progress as a writer.
Second assignment: a riddle, a dyad and a triad.

loyal through the sun and rain
but fickle in the wind
I encircle your horizon once
you fill me to the brim. What am I?

I mean to rent a moped in order to further explore these alleys and the city.
Tomorrow, a flea market, and then to go out and attempt to do something I've been doing with some measure of success since I've arrived: Get lost. Ciao!