Music makes the people come together

A night for those who like to walk. The touch of a gentle wind. A few stars shimmering in the sky.

Tens of thousands of people waiting for something in the relative silence under the lights.

Then the lights go off. And the silence is no more. It’s music time. It’s her energy flowing through the crowd. It’s the old and the new, it’s the whisper and the shout, it’s the lady and the tramp, it’s the virgin and the bitch, it’s the love and the hatred, it’s the tolerance and the border of insanity. And for a strange moment, a tribute to the music of the King, still more loved than the one we hear now. Thousands of hearts and minds stand united by the music.

And as sudden as it has begun, the game is over. The stars are above us once more. And the people start flowing on the streets, in the sweet end-summer night.

The night and the silence cover everything. And the time passes. And the night passes.

A curve, like the unending horizon of a beautiful island …

A point, like a bird in the sky …

A line, like the first ray of light of a nascent sun …

A butterfly shimmering in the light like a thousand stars …

A morning, like there’s no tomorrow …

A new day, with a new memory.

Il sogno della Serenissima

There was once a city. A city like no other. A city built on the waves of the sea. And in this city there was a palace. A palace in which monarchy, oligarchy and democracy stood side by side. A palace from which the fate of millions of lives was decided across the centuries. Constantinopole was overrun by crusaders because sometimes not even the will of the Holy Seat was heard under the banner of the Lion of St Mark. The Turks were kept at bay over and over again because the Lion ruled the seas. When all the powers of the western world united against him, the Lion stood its ground. When the religious fanaticism of the counter-reformation swept the catholic world, under the Lion’s banner there was still freedom. Art and culture also found a home in the richest city of the world.

Oh, how the mighty have fallen.

Giotto painted the redemption for another city and Venice is walking through the Purgatory. Now only that palace which still exists remembers the might of the Lion. Now the dreams of Venice are carried on the waves only by the millions who come to see the legendary city.

I wondered through this city. I walked on its islands, its bridges and its squares. I floated on its waters. I smelled the lagoon. I felt the dormant power of its history. I touched the lives and the dreams of hundreds of people. And I will always think at the city which received my lonely soul and let it swing on the waves of the collective dream while Mas Que Nada played in my mind.