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Tree that Listens and Talks

Daniel de Culla

    Today, October 31, 2021, by the hand of my wife I visit the Cemetery or Graveyard of Moradillo de Roa (Burgos), her town, located on top of a Cotarro (Roost) surrounded by deep cellars drilled in the centers of its land.
    The grief of the deceased buried alive or dead and, of some, its ashes, are diluted with the drizzle that falls from the sky along with its slight and cold darkness.
    My wife has left. Now, there is no one. Only the gravedigger guardian of the key to the gate lock, the only entrance door, who is leaving, and me. It’s one o’clock in the afternoon, and I ask him:
    -How is it that you leave the gate open?
    He answers me:
    -Today, Halloween, and tomorrow the Day of the Dead, the Cemetery or Graveyard is left wide open. There is no danger that those inside will escape; and those of you who are outside can come in and stay as long as you want, as if you want to stay forever, for all eternity.
    If we close the Cemetery or Graveyard daily, it is because we do not want some unscrupulous or criminal thief to come and take a hand-forged iron cross or a valuable ceramic urn.
    I answer him:
    -Voucher. Bye. Happy days always! There is much to see here. I am going to converse with that Tree that listens and talks.
    I pass by paths with flowers of Dandelions that surround some tombs, and I approach the Tree crowned with a cloud that kisses its branches and flies, when I reach it.
    I love its simple beauty and I praise the voice that comes out of its branches rocked by the cold breeze of so much appreciation.
    The Tree begins to tell me:
    “Today is not like in the past. Before, the dead rose from their graves or came out of their ashes in the form of trumpeting gnats at the time of human yawning and the crowing of the rooster. Or at the time between the Bray of the Ass and the fart of the She Ass that made other Asses Brawl instantly.
    Today they get up at the time they want. Here is Freedom of the good. With the greatest tenacity and strong determination, the dead, in command, go to a corner of the Cemetery, which they call the toilet, where the living leave the dead flowers with their plastic pots, and relieve themselves, which are only dust.
    Then they go, one after the other, to climb the wall to the top of the church tower, to dive headfirst from the bell tower to their respective tombs.
    A dead man comes up ... then another begins and everyone is singing at the moment:
    -We have a hollow head. We have dizziness. We hear voices. Help us to remember our emptiness of life.
    A dead man begins to throw himself ... The others are already imitating him, and they throw themselves headlong crashing into the ground.”
    -There is no doubt that this gesture of the dead is not one of despair, the Tree continues to tell me, but rather that it contains some arcane. Potentially we are all and will be emuli of the dead, proving worthily what Death is worth if it comes as if it does not come on time.
    For some, it is a great victory; for others, a shameful escape.
    “Let the Dead live” was the echo of the bells that could be heard resounding in the town when I left the Cemetery and went to the bar in the Plaza (Equare) to have the vermouth in which the rejoicing of this town takes part.
    Meanwhile, in the Sky, the black clouds were singing and lightning in a fight as fearsome as desired by some.
    Some boys and girls jumping like deer blessed the rain by singing:
    “Let it rain, let it rain, the Virgin of the Cave
    The little birds sing, the clouds rise
    Yes, no, let a shell fall
    With sugar and nougat
    And let him break the crystals (the glasses) of the bastard.”

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