The landscape rolled on,
moving quietly from jagged cliffs that protruded from the valleys in disparate forms,
to arid meadows, and on to endless plains.
A pale olive-green hovered above,
threaded by an infinite mantle of gold,
yellow, brown, and the odd flare of vivid ochres and rusty reds.
The horizon seemed coloured by thirst, as if seldom reprieved from the sun. Scattered and sporadic patches of lush green rebelled against the terrain—aleatory crops of plant life welled up amidst her unyielding, unruly expanse. The hills undulated onwards and hinted at dune-like shapes built on white granite and beige limestone, interspersed with layered forms that repeatedly converged upon stone walls raised in days long past.
Many had attempted to tame her—
Caesar, Hannibal, Saracen, Crusader.
All gone now,
save their voices
dwelling in the lonely steppe.
A loneliness that came through my window as the train clambered forward to the canticles of musica sacra billowing from abandoned church spires—which sprouted like chimneys in the distance. It gnawed at me, beckoning with a perennial question—a question condemned to that Eternal Return—without answer; one to which I would not assent, lest it toll my death knell. Because I, I preferred her that way: fleeting, vague, silent, dissonant—clacking away at my solitude without ever naming it.
So it is that I discovered
I loved her enough never to know her—enough to worship her like a muted idol carved from granite and limestone,
eroded by nameless winds, recording my ascendancy in pages without number,
and with it a progeny that shall never be.
There she shall remain forever,
harkening to a time when I found her—and almost lost my soul.
C. Alberto
