Eva Colombo, The peacock triptych, second chapter: The salvific mirage (
Inspired by Edmond Aman – Jean’s painting Young woman with a peacock, 1895 )
You shall stop. I know that it is your birthday and that you are alone. I know
that in this hot summer sunset you are walking towards the sea because you
cherish the hope that at least the sea would remember you, would recognize you.
But you can’t reach the sea, not now. Do not weep. You are thin and sinuous like
a torrent which through the rocks escape from the dogdays heat, your eyes have
the color of the ground quenched by the rain, you are beautiful like a lonely
shadow which offers an unhoped – for salvation. You don’t have to weep, you have
to wait. The sun glitter on the sea is now so bright that it attracts a lot of
people, too many people. You know whom I am talking of. Of those ones who
trample down everything and dry up everything, of those ones who have reduced
the land where you live to a desert. They don’t remember you and they don’t
recognize you because it is as if they were dead, dead people who remember and
recognize just what they have loved the most: money. In their hallucinated eyes
the sun glitter on the sea is a myriad of coins that they crave to grab. During
their mad race to snatch the gold of the sun they will run over you and trample
on you, they will throw you away. This shall not happen. A Fata Morgana will
erect around you a boundary wall and in the shade of this wall a garden will be
green. A puff of breeze through an oleander’s leaves will be like the voice of
the sea which tells you that the sea is waiting for you. A red dahlia in your
hand will be like that sun’s spark which stays behind on the sea because it is
destined for you alone. By your side, a blue – green peacock with folded tail
will be like the sun which, deep in the refreshing waters of the nightly sea,
waits for unfolding its own beauty again. At twilight hour the boundary wall
will vanish and you will reach the sea. You will whisper your name and you will
see a smile sparkling on each wave, and you will know that the sea remembers
you. |
