A QUIET FORCE MALETTO—1908
The mountain was deceiving. Only as people traveled farther and farther away from its sloped hills and crater top could they get a sense of its height. It planted itself in view for miles around and maintained its central focus in the distant landscape. Why would so many settle at its skirt’s edge, with the black volcanic rock lying about the fields as proof of inevitable eruptions to come? Here they worked, ate, and slept, day-to-day, tending their goats, collecting their figs and olives, curing their cheese, cultivating wheat, and flattening their bread.
Maybe it was the reigning peak of the island, swirled in nightly sunsets that bled rose tones into the sky, and lured hearts of men and women as they sipped their homemade wines and sucked salted olive pits. Or perhaps it was their pride that told them they could not run away with the mountain at their backs. Their ancestors had survived the volcanoes—isn’t that why they were here today? And how could they turn their backs on their ancestors? Love and courage had rooted these rugged people to their earth. They understood truths that outsiders would never know. For years, they watched invaders march into their country, just as a mountain tolerates climbers on its back. While oppressors bathed in the riches of their simple land, they watched their desirable habitat diminish. Under the heel of force, the islanders kept their heads down and stayed close to the earth, knowing someday their island would be returned to them, that their mountain would always remain their god. This was their strength—to yield, until the weak-spirited outsiders eroded away like soft rocks about the r
