I have never had the pleasure and honor of knowing the person who transmitted the passion for to my DNA hunting, I have always heard about it from my closest family members and more precisely from my grandfather's sisters. In all these years of honorable service with the Goddess Diana, I have built an imaginary figure of my own, of how that person could be who, despite never having seen, handed down in me an indescribable passion, that passion that gives you the strength to do up early in the morning, walking for hours and hours without seeing a wild, that passion that keeps you in the rain and the wind for a whole morning with the setter who looks at me as if he wanted to tell me: “You are completely crazy”.
To grandfather Piero, in the hope that one day we will live together the stop of an English setter on a herd of partridges, in a beautiful dream sunrise.
Wandering solitary hunter in the maze of experience, wandering in your solitude, hunched over yourself with the back that bears the weight of your years, your wisdom echoes in the valleys that you have always furrowed, in search of those emotions that only art hunting knows how to give you. Your heart now tired and weary, still gets excited in front of a still, throbs in the thick of the woods when you are in the presence of the queen, the trembling hand grabs the gun with force trying to fire a single shot, the wrinkled skin of the face relaxes when you sketch a smile of satisfaction for the wonderful thrust. Old age teaches, old age is sadness, old age is loneliness, and your life has been anything but easy; you fought at the front to defend our freedom, you were in the countries of the East to fight a war not yours, you came out alive dreaming of hunting waders and coots on the banks of the Don, you saw death in the face, in you did the knowledge and you got rid of it thinking about your beloved valleys and friends of all time.
Hunting like life has been a strict and inflexible teacher, teaching you the routes of migrants during the autumn pass, explaining the ideal winds for the passage and the throwing of the woodcock in the woods, you have dedicated entire days full of hope to learn about the habits of the ungulates at dusk and all this has happened in the course of your long life, since the Goddess of the hunt grants her knowledge a little at a time, but that little must be understood quickly or as the Latins used to say “Festina Lente”. All game was allowed and you, with infinite respect, took only the necessary, what did it matter if in a morning you met two, three, four hares, your hand put only one ear in the torn and torn game bag because two would have been a luxury, a wrong to nature and you didn't want luxuries. Raised in poverty and respecting the lives of others, you knew how to honor your opponent, man or animal, whatever the fight between you was always equal, never an advantage for either of you. Now lying in your bed, between torn and hard sheets, you look at the shotgun hanging over the fireplace and the many emotions that this gave you resurface in you, embracing it since your father gave it to you on your sixteenth birthday, until last shot made to a cotorna, which made you so tired to retrieve it in that ravine.
The gaze of the spinone lying at the foot of the fireplace crosses with yours, you would like to sit on the old wooden bench, savoring the aroma of the vanilla tobacco of your pipe and loading the cartridges as your father did, stroking it from time to time to strengthen that bond that has always united you.
The last breath of life is for him, companion of many mornings and many sunsets, stretch your hand towards that hairy face looking for it but not feeling it, with tired and slow movements he approaches you feeling to say goodbye for the last time, if he could he would accompany you as he always did on the most difficult and scary journey. The dusk of the evening and the fresh air of the still snow-capped peaks greet another day that is drawing to a close, turn your gaze out the window, where the sun is setting; do you remember ... you wanted to build it right there to gain an hour of light in the summer, your tired and shiny eyes look at the clear orange sky, as if nature wanted to pay homage to the beauty and purity of your life , you wear your saddlebag over your shoulder, load your shotgun and call the dog with a whistle, you are ready at the door to face the most beautiful and difficult journey.
COMPETITION LITERARY CATEGORY - "Passion Hunt Goal"
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