Eagle

The gravel squeamishly made slight crunching noises under the impact of his shoes’ soles as they kicked up faint dry dust clouds in the chilly humid morning summer air. Its pleasantly invigorating briskness, together with blackbirds and turtle doves’ cheerful songs and a previously had coffee, helped him in slowly but surely waking up.

He reached the bottom of the steep winding slope and took a sharp left onto a road flanked on either side by tall rows of cypress trees, towering pointedly above like rows of firmly planted spears. Marching unsteadily onward he tried his best not to lose his footing on account of the fallen cypress balls scattered about. Soon enough though, his feet rejoiced on the soft stretch of grass bordering a desolate field. The truncated stalks on it weekly evoked the previous radiant presence of the worshipping smiles of yellow.

The path slithered on through the undergrowth, down a traitorous, by gushes of rainwater chiselled channel penetrated and chaotically criss-crossed by a tangle of roots forming a makeshift flight of stairs.

After passing through a tunnel of low-hanging weeping hazelnut bushes, he dashed up a slight slope and after having passed a dead, hollowed out oak tree he got his first breath-taking view of the Tuscan countryside. The patchwork of fields was delimited by lines of shrubbery and trees, resembling a woollen blanket made by sewing together a myriad of scraps coloured in every shade of yellow and green imaginable. He stood there for a second, basking in the morning sun which had finally, courageously, popped up from behind the hazily blue Apennines circumscribing the valley of the Mugello valley.

Just rise, Sun

Over the Hills!

Breezes blow,

And the earth trembles with joy.

Boldly upwards

Grabbing night's

Forest-splendour,

Still briskly shrouded in dreams.

And from the towering

Rock-altar

Plunges the eagle

And descends into morning's blaze.

Fresh Morning!

Fresh Heart,

Skyward!

Leave the sleep now, leave the worries.

Looking about he was astonished to see to what extent the sun could overcome its shyness. The stretch of field at his feet had been scorched black by the past blistering July and August heat.

Onwards, upwards and downwards. The track undulated over hillock after hillock, passing the occasional solitary house, cherry tree or row of vines. Eventually, from the last vantage point before descending into its vale, he saw Vicchio perched on its artificial lake.

The photograph of the scene he took reminded him, in some way, of a Tangram puzzle. The two fields in the foreground made up two adjacent triangles, the seam between them being a little ditch from which a willow tree grew. A diagonal row of tall bushes separated foreground from mid-ground, the latter being the triangular viewable glimpse of the aforementioned lake with Vicchio, its two towers, and the yellow walls of the houses gleaming in the strengthening morning light. The veil of mist and a diaphanous fluffy cloud lifted towards the sky passing before the imposing dark green and blue mountains.

He tucked the camera back into his messenger bag and scurried down the treacherous slope of bare hardened clay.