This is the land of silence and of wind
that smells of millennia of history
once washed with brine by the northern Adriatic
in tidal pools among swarms of insects.

This is the land crossed by the Via Annia
that stretched towards the Augustan capital
lit by Saint Mark
and by the mosaics of Theodore of Aquileia.

This is the land of the great reclamations
of pumping stations, triumphal arches of the green plains
of wars along the banks of the Red River
of reed beds where Ernest Hemingway still wanders.

This is the land that stretches away
until it vanishes at the foot of the blue mountains
where the sky flows and fills
with the scents and flavours of fire, bread and wine.