WE ARE IN PUGLIA, IN CALA MASCIOLA. THE BLUE MOON OF THE NIGHT GIVES WAY TO THE RED SUN OF DAWN. WE ARE TWO STEPS FROM THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL PARK OF EGNAZIA, IN THE PROVINCE OF BRINDISI. THE MEDITERRANEAN SQUIRE SURROUNDS THIS HOLIDAY PLACE
It’s dawn. The Sun on the horizon with its red/orange rays illuminates a woman’s body lying on a large beach lounger.
It’s Rosalind Hoyt. She chose to look at the Blue Moon rise into the sky until dawn, where it disappeared behind the “Dark jungle.” An evocative corner of Puglia, the Selva di Fasanorenowned for its extraordinary biodiversity, which manifests itself in a multiplicity of plant and animal species and which recalls “The Divine Comedy” by Dante Alighieri, which Rosalind was reading.
I approach without waking her. I notice that the woman also has with her “Poems”by Giacomo Leopardi.
He bought them in a bookshop in Polignano a Mare, choosing them among the classics of Italian literature, stimulated by the cultural wave of the July literary festival: The possible book.
He wanted to read non-contemporary Italian, in a rich language.
She fell asleep reading…
“This steep hill has always been dear to me,
And this hedge, which goes so far
The gaze excludes the last horizon.
But sitting and aiming, endless
Spaces beyond that, and superhuman
Silence, and profound stillness
In my thoughts I pretend; where for a little while
The heart is not afraid. And like the wind
I hear rustling among these plants, I that
Infinite silence at this voice
I compare: and the eternal comes to mind,
And the dead seasons, and the present
And alive, and the sound of her. So between this one
Immensity drowns my thoughts:
And being shipwrecked is sweet to me in this sea.”
(“The Infinite” by Giacomo Leopardi)
The quiet of nature, the clear sky, the horizon that is lost in the distance over the sea while behind the gaze goes towards the Murge hill where the Selva extends.
It will be the place, the atmosphere, the environment that led her to dream. And, reading a poem in a language unknown to her, which tells of emotions and makes imaginative thoughts run, Rosalind tried to imagine a present, on a warm summer night in Puglia.
I can’t imagine what his emotions are, his thoughts that, for the first time, experience this astronomical and literary dimension, on the rocks by the sea of Cala Masciola, reading a poem by Giacomo Leopardi.
This is how she appeared to me this dawn
“Sovereign white olive belt
Woman appeared to me, under a green cloak
Dressed in the color of living flame.”
As from “Purgatory” of Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy, this is how she appeared to me this dawn. Covered with a light veil of green linen, illuminated by the first red/orange rays of the Sun while, in the landscape of the calm sea in the early morning, a fisherman and his rowing boat slowly return to the port after a night spent fishing in the light of the Blue Moon.
Intense parallel lives intersect in the landscape, where dreams intertwine with poetry, astronomy, literature, nature, widespread humanity, in a rich and complex composition that generates ideas, thoughts, desires.
Like the desire that Rosalind revealed to me in private, that is, to be able to experience an intense love story in Italy, during her stay in Puglia.
Everything supports her dream/desire but what is central to the environment, the landscape, the poetry is meeting, sharing and falling in love with a man who knows how to generate in her the imaginative perception of a truly possible story.
The sun is high, starting to make its heat felt.
Silently, I move away so as not to wake her, taking shelter under the shade of a centuries-old olive tree, in the blue sea of the August morning, streaked with red/orange, waiting for her to wake up.
© Domenico Tangaro Art