Diary from L'Aquila

Coming up to this age, from the mist of hidden times, strange parallels pointed to an imperial plan for a new Jerusalem, somehow upside down as in a mirror along the banks of another Jordan river, back in the 13th century when the city sprang up complete within some decades. In the widespread corruption of the church of God, Frederick II wanted another centre of Christianity, in the very heart of Italy, a little distance from the Rome of the Popes. Some years later the saint hermit Pietro da Morrone, already advanced in years, started his journey, walking all the way to Avignon, France, where the Pope granted him a recognition of his new austere rule, which already had thousands of followers in the faraway, abrupt land of Abruzzo, up in the mountains where only eagles dared to fly, in the monasteries which were the centers of a spiritual rebirth.

On his way back he stopped on the hill of Colle di Maggio, and in his sleep had the prophetic vision of a stairway to heaven, and the Virgin Mary at top, asking him to build a church in Her honor on that solitary site. His vision became the vision of the people of the city, and led in the coming years to the construction of the magnificent basilica with its facade - now leaning against a scaffold - of red and white stones forming a design of innumerable Greek crosses - and so many new crosses have blossomed out of the brown earth on a single day, this year. The red and white mosaic was repeated all over the floor - now covered with tons of debris - with other designs reminiscent of Templar symbols, so that among the many legends of medieval times there is also that one which tells how the Holy Grail is somewhere under the Basilica, and its secret is hidden among the mysterious signs of the other emblem of the city, the Fountain of 99 Spouts (actually 93?).

Like Jerusalem in the year 70 AD, the walls of Aquila fell down this year of the Lord 2009, its population, just as the citizens of Jerusalem, displaced and dispersed, and each day thousands of "new" pilgrims set on their journey back to the fallen city. How long will the exile last? For just how long will Aquilans be tent-dwellers or a nomadic multitude migrating every month to other places, other neighborhoods... or is transhumance inextricably connected to our genes? A new Diaspora began on 6 April 2009, and I am not sure I will see a return.

Just like the swallows that usually come back to Aquila later than to other places because of the cold, high-mountain climate, like the swallows that did not find the nest they left in late August, under that roof of that ancient, familiar house - the house, the roof, the nest, all gone now. Are the displaced swallows now at work building new nests under other roofs of what houses were left, or have those whose nests were broken abandoned the city this year?

Just like the Jews that only after almost 2000 years returned to their Jerusalem, because 2000 years were not enough to annihilate memory and heritage, like the swallows that next year will come again and check if the old familiar house has been by chance rebuilt, since their inborn memory is stronger than physical reality.

Just like the Jews, and the swallows, Aquilans will keep coming back, for years and years, the generations that lived their 11th of September on 6 April 2009, and for our children's children the places will become memorials of mourning and remembering. The city's squares, churches, fountains, palaces, alleys, the hamlets in ruin, will be for thousands their personal Wailing Walls.