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My
absence is presence...
I don’t remember when
I was born. Perhaps it was in the old days, when ice and snow covered
these lands up to the horizon. The river was not a river and the water
was no longer water.
There was no sign of man around, because a white
and cold death surrounded everything… because winds and storm distanced
man from here.
Then the warmth came slowly, with imperceptible steps that left no trace
on the surface. The water appeared like magic between the bare rock and
its ice cover. Small drops soon became rivulets and the rivulets became
creeks and the creeks became streams.
The streams became rushing rivers
flowing into ice caves, in a whirlpool of water and stones. One thousand
chisels of jasper sculpted the flanks of these mountains while the
current swirled (around).
The marble floor was not an inclined plane
anymore, but a waterfall of large hanging tubs.
It all lasted a year… or perhaps a century… or a millennium or more… I
don’t remember.
The sun quickly removed the ice cover, like a white sheet from a statue.
So, the eyes of the first men saw the wonder I concealed.
In my youth I knew the splendour of the spherical shape, with my sinuous
lines drawing perfect circles. The waters, now delicate, could brush my
rounded hips.
Unfortunately, time passes so fast and leaves its deep marks. The clear
profiles of yesterday are already edges bevelled by time. So, I lived an
age of forms softened by the years, but the pride of an ancient beauty
was in me.
I didn’t meet tree roots in the folds of my body, because the
current cleaned the riverbed. My skin was still smooth and glowing. Time
passed and I defended myself.
But I didn’t know and couldn’t know that my body is rock and the rock is
marble. I then realized that marble kindles the desire of humans and
sometimes leads to madness… I learned the hard way.
Some men came here one day with no order or rule. They had no respect or
pity for me.
The men laid the wire and began to cut my body of rock. I remember only
the hiss that penetrated inside me and the dull thud of my sliced shreds…
I lived alone looking for somebody, and then suddenly I wasn’t anymore…
Some years later, other men said that my sacrifice had not been in vain.
They added that there wouldn’t be another time...
I don’t know if it will be forever… but now my innocent absence is a
troublesome presence in you…
Antonio Bartelletti
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