Trade in oil and wine
across Mare Nostrum,
when the voices of Phoenician merchants
sang the powers of murex purple.
The hourglass has devoured the millennia.
Seagulls sweep overhead
from Rhodes to Tirana,
the tarantella rebounds
from Otranto to Istanbul.
I catch the same winds of war,
the trafficking of people, misery, hunger.
A blue nostalgia carries me back
to the beating heart of the Mediterranean,
where women dream the same dreams,
children play the same games,
cats hide in the shade of the fig tree.
Sacred is the mother in every
hidden cove of the Mediterranean.
Sacred the bread that rises, bringing people together.
Sacred the guest who crosses the threshold.
Crossroads of artists, priests and saints,
of pioneers, adventurers and rogues,
it teems with debris and miracle-workers,
with bodies sunk into the abyss.
The olive tree will sing with us
the nostalgia of the Mediterranean.
It will take root again along the shores,
becoming a womb,
where peoples hugs
each other.