Le favole di Lucia
The sea weeds and the posidoniae
Once
upon a time, in the deep sea, there was a wire statue of the
Virgin Mary that had been lost after the wreck of a ship in
which she was being carried.
She (the Virgin Mary) still remembered Her fall in the abysses of the sea. All had happened very slowly, and the clear and bright world She has seen on the surface had become indefinite and soft in the water. Less clear of course, but also less frenzied.
On arriving at the bottom of the sea the statue had settled between two rocks and from there She (the Virgin Mary) had been looking at the life of the sea for hundreds of years.
Every now and then the Virgin Mary looked at Her hands, at the folds of Her dress and took a glance at Her crown. Little by little Her eyes got accustomed to the new light and everything had become clearer. Also Her glance had become sharper and so She could clearly see some things which She hadn’t perceived till then in the shadows of the water.
So She realized that for hundreds of years She lay in a meadow of seaweeds; under Her very eyes their waving calmed and lulled her.
It was as if the seaweeds bent reverently down to greet Her. One day the Virgin Mary was struck by a sudden thought and said to Herself: “ I must thank these seaweeds; they have been silent for a lot of time teaching me a very important lesson. It took me a long time to understand that they are flexible, they bow here and there according to the power of the sea but never break. Now they are almost as centenarian as I am. They have withstood a lot of storms and yet they have remained as young and fine as if they had been born yesterday. They have been masters both of flexibility and coherence because, after all, they have been attached there for hundreds of years still in their places with their deeply seated roots but with their fingers open to let the storms pass easily through. They are much better then the rocks in which I am trapped. These rocks are probably of use to the human beings, but they are so stiff, so still, and always dark that they are tiresome besides being dangerous. When the streams are strong, it’s always stormy among them; with the seaweeds, on the contrary, it’s always spring. The Virgin Mary for a moment thought of the flowers that the human beings used to give Her in May.
The seaweeds understood the Virgin Mary’s nostalgia and immediately offered Her a bunch of Posidoniae.
She (the Virgin Mary) still remembered Her fall in the abysses of the sea. All had happened very slowly, and the clear and bright world She has seen on the surface had become indefinite and soft in the water. Less clear of course, but also less frenzied.
On arriving at the bottom of the sea the statue had settled between two rocks and from there She (the Virgin Mary) had been looking at the life of the sea for hundreds of years.
Every now and then the Virgin Mary looked at Her hands, at the folds of Her dress and took a glance at Her crown. Little by little Her eyes got accustomed to the new light and everything had become clearer. Also Her glance had become sharper and so She could clearly see some things which She hadn’t perceived till then in the shadows of the water.
So She realized that for hundreds of years She lay in a meadow of seaweeds; under Her very eyes their waving calmed and lulled her.
It was as if the seaweeds bent reverently down to greet Her. One day the Virgin Mary was struck by a sudden thought and said to Herself: “ I must thank these seaweeds; they have been silent for a lot of time teaching me a very important lesson. It took me a long time to understand that they are flexible, they bow here and there according to the power of the sea but never break. Now they are almost as centenarian as I am. They have withstood a lot of storms and yet they have remained as young and fine as if they had been born yesterday. They have been masters both of flexibility and coherence because, after all, they have been attached there for hundreds of years still in their places with their deeply seated roots but with their fingers open to let the storms pass easily through. They are much better then the rocks in which I am trapped. These rocks are probably of use to the human beings, but they are so stiff, so still, and always dark that they are tiresome besides being dangerous. When the streams are strong, it’s always stormy among them; with the seaweeds, on the contrary, it’s always spring. The Virgin Mary for a moment thought of the flowers that the human beings used to give Her in May.
The seaweeds understood the Virgin Mary’s nostalgia and immediately offered Her a bunch of Posidoniae.