Winter
Winter has just arrived. It has been accompanied by the long awaited rains. The countryside, always grateful, has beautiful green carpets full of light, the streams and brooks once again show off their waters that play among the rocks and run clean and fresh like the air that brushes softly, but without stopping, the faces of those who observe.
The clouds challenge each other to change colours, between those whites and greys and more greys through which the blues of a sky that casts a ray of light or two or three..., illuminated lances that pierce the darkness that intends to stay to create shadows, images that transform the imagination of those who wish to do so.
Silence reigns in this magical country where the sounds of nature challenge each other. An enveloping silence with its contradictions that awakens memories. It is not impossible to listen in silence, silence speaks, projects its speeches, thrills with its improvised surprises. There it is, in that calm, the call of a partridge, the tapping of a woodpecker, the group flight of migratory birds. Flying and flying while the drops of water fall with force on the leaves of the trees that seem to fight at the same time as the wind entangles them. Listening and watching as the pace slows until something invites you to stop.
Acorns are scattered on the ground, buried in the mud, hidden in the bushes. That bitter taste like a bad day, that skin stuck like a blanket on a cold afternoon, that rural fruit that has not managed to settle in homes like chestnuts or walnuts. And then comes the smell. The games. That knife that cuts them in half. A fireplace. An old man in a hat who places them carefully so as not to burn himself, so that we don't burn ourselves when we pick them up. Acorns roasting in the heat of the embers of a fire in the middle of nowhere.
A dog barks in the distance. The mountain ranges extend their bark like a plea for salvation. Between ravines, sunny and shady spots, it does not know the path it has to follow to reach its destination. But it will get there. Its instinct, its sense of smell, its desire... It is not easy to find one's way in these unknown mountains where only the chosen ones know the way. It is not easy to wait for the night to fall without fearing the thought of what it hides. Open hiding places where danger lurks if ignorance becomes daring, if the law of nature itself is not respected.
Winter has arrived while these days of tension continue, of wars near and far, of confrontations and insults from politicians, among themselves and to the institutions, of lack of respect and protocols that are not fulfilled, of attitudes that shame the citizens, that make us look for what we need so much: the rains that cover our fields with beauty.