Diary from L'Aquila

The heap of ruins is lower, dust and tinier debris washed away by the rains of the past three months. That night bricks, mortar, furniture, mixed with the blood, flesh and bones of the victim, and the tears cried on the deadly site. Time has passed, suns and moons have risen and set on the heap, each day the scar closing some more on the open wound, even if we do not want to, even if we feel guilty at the pain of the wound not aching so much as before.

Then the other day, passing as always along the fallen house to reach mine, I saw the new color, the light green, tender shade of new delicate grass growing on the debris. Seeds and soil carried by the warm, early summer winds brought this simple, weak life where death had pitilessly taken the rich human treasure.

Life growing where death was, and covering death with a fresh green mantle. As John Keats wrote in his diary, while listening to the sound of the fountain of Piazza di Spagna, in that room which he knew would listen to his last breath ... "I hear the sound of flowers growing on me".