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The
ancient village overlooks the
sea.
The inside walls protect the inhabitants from the merciless summer sun and
from the icy lashing of the winter wind. The outside walls are dazzling
white, consumed by the sun and the saltiness.
In
the little harbor fishing boats take shelter.
During
the long summer afternoons, men with their faces cooked by the sun and
full of deep wrinkles, repair fishing – nets in the shadow of the wall
and chat.
It
seems that the sky and the see melt each into the other: it’s impossible
to say where one ends and the other starts because they’re both the same
intense blue.
In
the silence, only the barking of the dogs is heard, dogs with their
tongues dangling because of the excessive heat, and far away a baby is
crying between his mother’s arms, trying to calm down.
Lazy
waves ripple the surface of the sea and everybody wait until the sunset in
order to dive and allow a truce to men and animals.
Leaning
on the little wall, two seagulls white as those stones scan the horizon
one next to the other. Fishermen taken up with working are ready to swear
that those two seagulls in the morning streak across the sky, while at the
sunset they’re there, on the wall, looking far from there and waiting
the night come down together.
Master
Nicola also says he’s seen them crossing in flight the reddish disk of
the full moon and then transform into two bright stars until the dawn of
the following morning. But everybody knows that Master Nicola sometimes
gulps down a superfluous glass of wine -hic!- that good wine he
cherishes jealously -hic!!- in his cellar.
His
fellow townsmen say that the wine is guilty for his nonsense talking and
there’s nothing true in what he says.
But
I think that they have lost the capacity to believe in tales, that
capacity Master Nicola has got the chance to keep.
Tonight
follow his example, raise your eyes to the sky and observe carefully
whether you see two seagulls crossing the sky to vanish in the horizon and
leaving their place to two stars.
Ah,
I was about to forget, goodnight, babies, and sweet dreams!
(English
translation by Silvia
Mancini)
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