How can so much love come from so much sadness? How can so much joy come from so much melancholy? How can all this go so straight to our soul? How can this songs and this voice fill us with … life? How can we feel the inner heat left by her even in this cold night? Maybe we don’t need to know. Maybe we only need to see and feel it happening.
Sometimes the words are not enough to tell everything. Sometimes my love, all I can say to you is this – wherever you are, vaya con dios.
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.
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.
Venice. The pearl of the Adriatic Sea. The queen of the seas. A city embraced by the waters.
Let this sea wash away the doubts and the sorrow; let this sea wash away the memories and the longing; let this sea drown the tears and clean the soul. Let the waves bring peace to the wandering minds.
The wind was howling through the night. The human-wolves were hunting in the darkness. Lies and betrayals were all around. The preying on the weak or the suffering was the way of living. The death and the wars were destroying the future. In the ashes of life, hope, scared and bleeding, was hiding. Angels were falling from the sky.
A moment of silence. The sound of crying. The tears of a child falling on the broken wing of an angel. A ray of light shining on the face of innocence. A pure soul washing the sins of an imperfect world. The revived hope.
Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me. Surely goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.
