(San Michele, Venice)
On the cemetery island off Venice, trees grow against walls. It is not a free, unrestrained growth. Rather, it is a growth that has come to terms with its limitations. The trunks are twisted, growing crooked and stocky; the branches wind their way between the stones; the crowns remain narrow or fade into the shadows. They hold their ground in the tightest of spaces. It is as if they must earn their place.
Beneath the trees: tens of thousands of graves. Everything points to the end. And yet, at the same time, something new emerges, continuing to grow.
It is a peculiar place for growth. Soil that belongs to the dead brings forth new life. Yet it is not a life that appears carefree or lush. The trees seem marked by their location, as if they were bearing the weight of the soil within them. Here, they symbolize nothing, and yet they remind us that life and death are not neatly separate states. They remind us that even where we locate the end, something takes root.
Are they out of place here, or do they belong here precisely because of that?
Perhaps it is both.