Postcard Assignment: Santi Quattro Coronati

Courtyard
Basilica Santi Quattro Coronati
Roma

To the left of the picture is the entrance to a quiet courtyard, a place that feels completely isolated from the big, bustling city of Rome. Shawn rings a buzzer and a nun comes to open the door and usher our big group inside. I can hear a bird, almost certainly a pigeon, launch itself into flight, its wings flapping together, and I see its shadow streak across the sunlit wall on the right side of the courtyard. All 22 of us arrange ourselves around the small courtyard, to write. 40 minutes of time to sit and write. When everyone is sitting down the only sounds to be hear are the trickling of the fountain in the center, and the occasional plane flying overhead. This place is an oasis, a retreat from the modern city of Rome. A place built throughout the past where even the new add ons are far older than anything in Seattle. Sitting from far away I think I see turtles in the fountain, but up close I see that they are just curved stones. Feathers float on the surface of the water.