Last weekend, after a week of work in the city, we were going to "Nun t'adesciĆ " with many good intentions and things to do (... "we must" grind all the thorns that have piled up so as not to waste energy by burning, "we must "fix the outflow of water from the road," we must"..." we must"...)
On the way home, upon the path that leads us to Via dei Monti that lead us to Nun t'adesciĆ we begin to see dead and green branches scattered everywhere on the asphalt ... indeed he did a great wind these days ... we go down from the car every time to remove the branches that clutter the way.
Arrived in front of the house takes us a strange feeling ... the lawn overlooking the garden and then the valley ... too much light, too much sky ... and in disbelief, we realize that ... missing a tree! A tree that stood there perhaps from a hundred years, an old mulberry tree that gave no fruits, but it gave us cool in the summer and security and serenity just watching it... maybe a whirlwind have killed him. I take a closer look ... is there, lying, down from the cliff, anchored in despair with the latest roots to the soil that barely prevent him to ruin in the valley ...
And the thought runs: nature has its course which sometimes is bad, cruel, it is she which lays down the law and marks the passage of time, and not our "must do" ... And then, but it's really the nature which had its course, or even here was the induced climate changes to have given a "push" in this situation (too dry summer that has hurt all the trees, the ground suddenly too soaked by the rains of recent days, ...) Then the thought back to how many times we said or thought we would "have to" cut some branches too, especially the higher ones that were drying ... but there were other more urgent things to do ... perhaps if we had have those couple of hours, now the tree would still be standing ... it was our fault? ... But we are only a tiny grain of sand, and sometimes we delude ourselves to be able to do something, but in reality the time runs the same, with or without us, it do not expect us.
The old mulberry tree had been there for a hundred years, and now it's gone.
Then, while we cut it in pieces to keep it from dragging behind too much ground down the slope, at his feet a little sapling, standing, firmly anchored to a tenacious root and ... here ... that will be the new mulberry which even maybe he will not produce fruits, but it will give us new shadow, new joy and safety, and, older but more impressive, to those who will follow us...