There is a walkway that output from Grosseto for a couple of miles along the Senese dangerous road to Siena. Next to the side of the road through which it is to Grosseto ... and here, a few hundred meters before entering the mall where there is rotation of Mercy Hospital, a true port city of Maremma, there is a memorial stone. It is still on the edge of a field with the profiles of the distant mountains and crystal clear air of the day. Topped with a sturdy gray stone cross is surrounded by a sense of peace, despite the Senese and right next to homes that are now building around. I guess even on winter nights, cold nights in the country, not like those of the metropolis, the dark night, where silence and solitude, windswept and full of mystery and spirituality.
There is a name on this stone, which I will not say. The name of a young man who died at 26 years. And then a sign ... that says,
this is a place of great evil
the circle of death appeared and withdrew
until the fire of revenge
not brought with him his wife
merciful
The I saw for the first time in 1995 when I moved from Rome to Grosseto according to my wife. We did, we had always done in Rome, long walks. And one of our first outings was to Grosseto on that ... walked towards Roselle, Maremma countryside towards the immense, even then as now. The Senese put a little 'fear, full of machinery as it was but the road was cool and shady in the afternoon in the summer and the peace of the countryside around us instilled courage and quiet.
The stone was surrounded by greenery in the thick wire weed of the roadside, lapped by the thorns beside the ditch, surrounded by vines parasites seemed timeless and out of place. What I had written it shakes but remained silent for a long time past. This sharpened my emotion. The stele was old. The young man had died in '53 and his wife, most likely, it had set up soon after ... maybe in '54 or '55 when I think, the pain must have been partly allayed.
I thought this young man died now for 43 years and perhaps his wife died too. I thought of the peace of those fields, then the edge of the road, such as sudden death had struck, the awful writing that leaves no way out except in merciful end to endless pain and anger he felt that woman. I pondered the sull'accenno without finding or seeking revenge reasons, but only in solidarity with those people who had suffered so much.
suffered for their pain and that air funeral me engraved in the soul.
other times I went back and I always paused in thought before that monument paying tribute to the suffering old and forgotten, sealed and unknowable. Still, peace of countryside and violence mixed there, made me ponder. Even today, after ten years of separation from my wife.
Yes ... time will increasingly away from the people we loved and who in one way or another we lost.
And perhaps the strength with which that stone was engraved in my heart and testified to the intimate yet known my understanding that a little later I would be separated from the woman who wanted to tie my life forever.
Grosseto, July 30, 2009
