Wednesday 21 November 2007

the unknown end of a trapped dandelion..





















A trapped dandelion..
A naughty breeze that took it so near the flower..
A disappointed spider, waiting for food, and capturing just a delicate traveller..
Some say it went on its flight, after an understanding photographer came, and freed it....
Some say it stayed there, waiting to see how buds would open in all beauty...
No one.. no one will know the truth..

Thursday 15 November 2007

the decision..



















The shadows of thousand voyages across all seas...
The quietness and safety at the port..
She looks thoughtful, but i know.. her wings will open widely, and she will fly, free, one day...
One day...

Wednesday 14 November 2007

applauses!















I don’t like cemeteries, I don’t believe in going to see a piece of soil where just a body was buried once.. as much as i don’t believe in afterlife..

But when I was at Vienna, i had to go to its cemetery. I saw so many people here, stopping.. some just shooting an image to say: "I was there".. but others, like me, feeling a deep emotion that words cant describe…

Well, why not to think that an artist, that a piece of his soul, may stay there! Why not to think that each flower, that each image made, that each tear, as those that fulfilled my eyes at that time and are appearing now when I write… … all are applauses!

I felt the soul of my beloved Beethoven there.. and I thanked him, deeply, for so much pleasure, for so much melancholy.. for so deep sorrow and happiness that his music brought to me..

Maybe now, when I decide to show this image, I am only clapping him.. again and again.. with the silent emotion of my soul..

Tuesday 30 October 2007

alone..



It begins when loosing the smile... then the things around seem to loose reality, focus and accuracy…

It goes on.. colours, tones, feelings fade in the air..

Then, one day, you find yourself wondering where are all.. asking yourself: were they once?

A shy soul besides you, will have no answers.

Wednesday 24 October 2007

a humble gift..












For those of us who cant bear any kind of chains, invisible of real, any rope tiding our hands and our souls with the social rules, with the heavy duty of being “normal and civilized”..

For those of us who feel that the task is heavy and we will not survive, and fear many, many times that strengths will abandon us..

For us, who cant live our whole life kicking all boards and feeling so tired while doing it..

A humble gift, a vision of the endless sea..
it will be always there, patient, waiting for us..

Thursday 18 October 2007

Rain and chains..



-Saint Peter sent us the rain!!

He watched at my eyes when telling me those words, with a toothless smile... he was walking happily carrying his bag, as old and wrinkled as his dark skin. However, it was as if the rain was moistening and hydrating both, giving them new life.
Hot weather was nearly unbearable…the air difficult to breath… and the downpour falling, had offered all of us a relief for some minutes.

The sea had veered from the deep blue to the emerald and the clouds at sky had given new greenery to the palms of the Oceanic Avenue, at that magic city of Salvador de Bahia, Brazil. The fortress was outlined against the summer storm, now brightened by the coming sun and while observing it, I thought about many years ago. I imagined the eyes of other black men, as black as the one that had spoken to me.

They were arriving at the coast… and when seeing that fortress, they would surely had asked themselves what was waiting them at that land, so distant from theirs. They had been constrained to go on board of those ships… some of them came from far villages, where foreigners had arrived speaking with guns and terror…
They knew that they had lost their freedom but what they didn't know at that moment was that they would never recover it... neither them, nor their children nor their grandsons.
Because even the slavery would be abolished many years after, the chains would be others…. maybe concealed… maybe with different denominations…. but chains at last…

Cloudburst had finished, as fast as it had begun… and my heart was still wondering how would have been life for that old man there, at his faraway Africa.
I imagined him smiling to rain, and feeling gratitude… not to Saint Peter, but to who knows which protectress goddess… thanking the blessing for the arid soil…

Tuesday 16 October 2007

Fighters at the park..



I went to the park... while i was taking some new photos, I saw them... emerging from cold, muddy waters and beginning a crazy fight. I shot them many times… their quarrel...but when i left my camera and watch at them, they stayed quiet, as if they would be just fallen trunks…

Later I realized they were gazing, listening…
They knew something was going to happen.. and it did..
They sighed satisfied, they had succeeded this time...

They returned to centre of earth, ready for the next battle..

Monday 15 October 2007

The violinist..








She had left the train with sleepy eyes.
While walking along the platform carrying her two bags, she was thinking and wondering how would that city would look like … she had heard that it was easy there to obtain some euro, but she wasn’t sure...
So, she set out to the main street, full of tourists and residents....

While walking along , she was watching the pavement, whose tiles formed crazy waves, and the buildings, impossibly strange and fabulous… what a vast difference this was compared with those she had visited after leaving her far hometown, some years ago…

At once, she realized that she would not earn much money in that street, because there was a lot doing the same as she did. But she went on walking. Few people paid attention to her worn out trousers, boots, and her hair, dirtily punk.

By chance, she looked at her left and saw a square not so far. When she arrived there, she discovered a beautiful space surrounded by buildings, plenty of cafes with people seated at their tables, sharing the sky and that moon between the palms growing at that incredible place. She decided to try there…
At a side of the square, there was a row of people waiting to enter who knows where, so she thought : maybe I had better stay there. She stopped nearby, left one of her bags on the floor, opened the other, and took out her old, out-of-tune violin.

She knew well that the coins she got from people were more for pity, than for her art. However, she did not care. For a longtime now, there were few things she cared about. She was only interested to eat that day… hunger was strong.
When she was about to begin playing, she noticed a little girl standing in the front row of the people watching her. And her soul recognised with surprise that the kid had the same glance that she once had as a young child. Inquisitive, impish, plenty of desire to discover the world, the universe… a glance thirsty of life…

She asked herself when had she lost that glance… she asked herself why…

However, closing her eyes as she always did when playing, she began…
The notes that her fingers whispered, and the music that her heart bestrewed to pervade that square, lasted for many minutes… it was like all those years of containment had been finally liberated…. all that energy, all that eagerness to drink life until the last drop had appeared again.
She played and played, without realizing that people watching and listening all around her had silenced, and without noticing that all at the coffees’ tables had stopped to talk, at that Plaza Reial at Barcelona…
She played as if the night would never be finished, and as if that moon smiling among the palms would be enjoying that moment… she played for lost joys and for the inexhaustible pains, for the remembrance of a laugh and the taste of a chat…
Her fingers, suddenly, stopped. She came back to reality and opened her eyes hoping this time to find more coins in her cap lying on the ground in front of her.
But what she found, in addition to many, many coins, was people with teary eyes. People had not even been able to applaud because it seemed that their emotion had overcome their ability to react…

In front of them, was that little girl. Watching her with a smile, saying in silence that dreams and hopes are always there, within us… and that never, ever, must we confine them.


.

Friday 12 October 2007

An universe and four elements..





Here at Agrigento, Sicilia, 2500 years ago, it was born the famous pre-Socratic philosopher Empedocles.. and among all his theories and ideas, he talked for the first time about the existence of four elements : water, air, earth and fire, present in all things. He believed that the origin of the universe was there .. love would be the force joining them all... and discord, hate, would be the one dividing, separating...
When looking at these landscapes, I understood why he had thought about that theory... Water was there, at thin rain and near sea..
Air was there, at fresh, gentle stormy breeze..
Earth was there, at green smell, trees, and stones …
and Fire.. my soul was on fire, trying not to miss any of those wonders and feeling how much all was joined..
A whole universe, yes..

Tuesday 9 October 2007

The Certainties







The fights among Gods and men have always delighted and interested me, firing my imagination. I imagine Mount Olympus as the scene of discussions and quarrels, and I often wondered how someone of that divine blood had sided at those skirmishes, as Homer tells us in the Iliad…

Now I was going to the very place where real blood had pored forth on the earth. Where thousands of men were killed where the only purpose was to save the honour of a king who had been robbed, who had lost his wife kidnapped by a poor shepherd.

When I was a girl, I was fascinated. As I got older, in addition to being fascinated by the epic, I started to wonder why history always looks for incredible reasons to chronicle real facts. And if a brilliant narrator recites those reasons and facts, then I need nothing more to fill my soul with emotion.

The way to Troy seemed to be a long way from Istanbul, after someone had told me it was quite close. Two hours and a half by ferry to Bandirma, two hours more by bus finally arriving at Channakale, and there, after trying to make myself understood by hand signs, I finally found the way to reach the place. The place I never thought that I would see, but indeed I had dreamt about visiting one day.

The communication by hand signs had not been detailed enough to let me know how long that trip would take and I managed to get a lift in a small bus. However, I didn’t mind… I was waiting for that moment, when all my excitement and eagerness would overcome me.

The van was full of local people, and it stopped at many different houses to gather a variety of objects which they had to carry between the seats. Huge pipes, casseroles, hens. It was like travelling in a mobile supermarket.
All of them were watching me… and I knew why! I was sure that no tourists had used this way to reach Troy, since the excursion coaches were more comfortable and they took them there more directly and much more quickly.
It was amongst the throng that I saw her. She was about 20 years old, maybe as young as 18… But her peculiar eyes were those of a baby, half surprised and half shy, and she was analysing detail by detail all that I did with furtive glances. My clothes.. my worn out little travelling bag…

I gave a sideway glance, because I did not want to make her feel uncomfortable, but I was really trying to discover what she was thinking about me.
As usual, my fertile imagination made me wonder how I would have felt, living in such a small town and then seeing an absolute stranger from a foreign land ……coming from who knows where … and I understood why she was watching me.

Suddenly I realized that the vehicle was continuing its way without stopping, I began to worry… I had previously planned to make the return journey on the other bus to arrive in time at the ferry port for my return to Istanbul…
Uffff… It seemed that to see Iliad I needed to live a small Odyssey, but Ulysses was Me, and I wasn’t able to return for many years….
I decided to ask how far away the city was, and of course, the one who was willing to communicate was the girl who was in front of me…
In English and with signs I tried to ask her about Troy, she repeated that shy gesture and lowered her eyes… then I remembered that it was something similar to Truva in Turkish, so I repeated that name.
At that moment, all changed. Her glance was not pensive, her face was enlightened by an amusing thought, almost triumphant… and with a condescending gesture, she lowered her hand a little as if to say to me: You need not worry, stay quiet…
I smiled. I was no longer that stranger bursting into her world. She knew something that I needed, and then she no longer had any type of fear. From there on, she went on observing me openly, and whenever she saw me looking at my watch (I was wondering how much time I would have to see the ruins and come back) she smiled.

Finally, I saw her standing. She looked at me for the last time and pointed down the road, as if saying: there is the city. The small vehicle stopped in order that she and others could alight. And when thanking her in Turkish, again that shy gesture returned, as if nothing had passed between us.
A few minutes later, the conductor also told me, and I got off the bus.

I paid the entrance fee and then I discovered that I had only 20 minutes to see Troy before the bus returned to pick me up and take me back.
I ran the 400 metres to where the ruins began… I was touched seeing the rest of that besieged city… and from there, far away, the sea, and the green fields where they had disembarked ready for fighting. I breathed there the smell of thousands of men and the spirit of the Gods of Mount Olympus, filling with discord the poor souls of those warriors…


I remained thinking and remembering that girl on the bus… the certainty of knowing something, that gives us that confidence that makes us lose any fear, or any shame… I imagined the Aequeus, the troops attacking, consulting the oracle or the fortune tellers, to have the certainty that they would win, made those interminable years of pain more bearable…

Moreover, I imagined Schliemann, the discoverer of Troy, with his innate certainty that he would find it, and I imagined him fighting against the mocking of his contemporaries, against the distrust of the Turkish government, losing fortunes to obtain his dream. He was also sure… he had the certainty that the city was there

My time had finished… I ran again towards the entrance, where the bus had arrived…
I had travelled for 6 hours and I had another 6 hours to return. The reward had been those glorious 20 minutes… When I had decided to make that excursion, I did not know if I would arrive on time, if I would be able to see it, if the money I had taken with me would be sufficient…but, in fact, and let me be “arrogant” in this instance… I had the certainty that I would succeed.

Wednesday 3 October 2007

autumnal shadows..






Thinking how much I missed autumn, i was walking near home when I found a bare wall, a window..
I closed my eyes, tightly, and I saw them..
fragile dry leaves, ready to be taken by a breeze…
When I opened my eyes again, only the bright sun
was shining at that wall..
But my soul was fulfilled with autumnal shadows

Monday 1 October 2007

flowers and war..















I was walking along the narrow street, in that quiet French village.. night was coming, and the last breeze of the late sunset were escorting me all the time…
Suddenly, a white wonder made me stop.. it was there, in a big pot behind the bars of a balcony… a cactus flower, ready to open in all its beauty.

I stopped, watching it, and remembered the cactus in my garden, far away at home, and how I was always eager waiting for the day that it blossomed. Just one night, but deserving …

A voice brought me back to reality. A man was talking to me, from inside the open window of that balcony…
- Do you like the cactus?
- Sure, sir, I love them, as much as I love their flowers…
- Well, you are lucky then, this cactus offers me only one per year, and you are seeing it now.
- And it is so beautiful, -I added, still watching it- their ephemeral life makes them special. You can watch other flowers.. a glance, coz you know you will see them again the next day, and the following ones.. and there will be many of them ready to blossom when the others die.. but when you watch a cactus flower, you try to fill your soul all of a sudden.. You are intoxicated with its beauty… coz you know it will be brief.. and intense.. And it will have to last a whole year.
- Curious, he said- your eyes watching it, reminded me of another pair of eyes, a long time ago, waiting for this miracle.. and not knowing they would lose it, but gain a better one: to keep alive

His face was ready to bloom, as the flower.. his eyes bright, his voice somehow trembling… I didn’t dare to ask.. but I waited…
- The cactus was behind the window. – He began- my mother had told me it would be flowering for one day.. and each morning, she showed me the stem growing and the bud filling out … that morning she had told me it would open that same evening.
The man sighed.. a pause.. then he went on

-I remember.. that guy riding his bicycle fast while shouting; they arrive! they arrive! (“They” was for the Germans, the "Boche", the enemy)… and we saw smoke at the top of the roofs and we heard explosions in the distance… It was August 1944, young lady, two months after the landing at Normandy and all the German troops were going up north to reinforce the front line, and cross the area… But at Limousine, my place, the resistance, the “maquis” were very powerful and well organized and they attacked the enemy constantly. In the German army there was an armoured division ..very famous, and it was under orders of General Lamerding. They had left Provenza, and through the Languedoc they had devastated towns and villas… when arriving at Tulle, they had arrested all men they found, and had hung them throughout the avenue.

I was frightened.. the man smiled and told me

- It was the war.. for both sides. And they were the ones arriving at my town… I remember old veterans of the World War I, guns in hands, descending the hills… and civilians of the Resistance, with their bracelets red, white and blue, running in all directions, grenades on their waist… and us, escaping, following the course of a stream, and hiding from the shrapnel of the airplanes that flew overhead… finally, we arrived at a farm, on the hill from where we could see all of the valley. There were already lot of people there, who, like us, had left the town… we listened, far away, the explosions roared… we saw billowing black smoke rising, in the valley.

- The battle lasted two days, lady… - continued the man- adults occasionally watched the edge of the hill, to see if the smoke was still there, if they heard explosions… On the third day there was silence… and an old man arrived at the run to tell us that they had gone away… that morning of the third day, they had departed. Soon we found out that they had moved to South Oradour Glane and had set the population ablaze… the women and the children in the church, the men in the garages… but they never returned to Normandy… the Resistance overcame them, annihilating them all…

The man paused… his voice was trembling, and with it my soul.

- I ran to my home - he said – in a rush to see the cactus… but there was only a stem fallen, the dead flower… dried petals on the flowerpot…

And then I saw, in that man’s expression, the eyes of a disappointed boy, who, at that moment, had felt more saddened by a flower, than by the horrors surrounding him…
I watched the flower again, opened now… and its perfume smelled of war and death, but also of hopes and miracles


Merci beaucoup, Yves..

Friday 28 September 2007

hiding moon..and the breeze..



The moon, spying behind trees, watches how autumnal breeze takes twigs and leaves…

Some rational people, belonging to the club “Autumns’ rejecters”, say that it is only a swimming pool, with leaves at its bottom and floating at surface, with some tree’s reflections at a cloudy day....
But I truly disapprove that idea..

Wednesday 26 September 2007

no matter how..



A stop, at this thick stony wall, among the ruins of Agrigento, Sicilia..
I was tired for a while, but ready now to go on ...the sea, the light as a burning candle, are waiting for me.. I'll cross to other lands.. other seas.. other wonders...
No matter how much it will take... no matter when will I arrive...
I shake my wings, still wet of the storm... and fly...

Monday 24 September 2007

four worlds..




A world in a drop..
Four worlds at a universe..
Millions of universes just dancing at this wonderful earth..
ready to invite us to dance with them..

Saturday 22 September 2007

to draw the world..


A bell at an arch, at Palamidi fortress ..the city of Napflios down.. far, an island with Bourtzi castle.. Agamemnon kingdom, at Peloponessus..
The eye’s effort to capture all, to feel all.. to draw the world..
And it came to my mind some words by the great argentine writer.. Jorge Luis Borges..
“A man sets out to draw the world. As the years go by, he peoples a space with images of provinces, kingdoms, mountains, bays, ships, islands, fishes, rooms, instruments, stars, horses, and individuals. A short time before he dies, he discovers that the patient labyrinth of lines traces the lineaments of his own face.”

Friday 21 September 2007

unique and special..


I was walking among the rocks, and suddenly I saw them... many colourful stones, brightening happily under the sun, inside the tide's waters...
They dazzled me... I took one... I stole one! and slid it in my pocket...

Now I am watching it, and it is just a simple stone, not much different from million others...
But it IS special!


Thursday 20 September 2007

about this world ..and beyond.



I was walking under the warm sun, looking for a piece of shadow to can have a rest, when suddenly I saw him..
The man was there, sitting on a thick wall, and watching far away..
I didn't know his age, I didn't know where had he come from (the place was full of tourists)
I liked the image.. the architecture, his attitude.. and I shot.
But when i came near, I saw his eyes... his face..
He looked like a statue.. unable to go anywhere.. and i tried to pervade his hard skin.. and i tried to read his stony soul...
Nothing...
I went on walking.. wondering about this crazy world.. and beyond...

Wednesday 19 September 2007

because...


Because we may be some times fragile as a feather, taken by the breeze..
but because we can also be strong enough to float at any conditions, without sinking..

a feather to fly free,
a feather to float strong..

alone...
mighty..

Tuesday 18 September 2007

how many?



"Two souls" or "three souls" to add as a title?..

Or maybe four as I made the capture...


Or maybe five as you are watching it





Monday 17 September 2007

behind rusty curtains..


Between rusty closed curtains, i saw him..dirty glasses were almost hiding his face..
I pretended i was watching my camera, but with its screen rotated, i captured him fast and went on my walk..
When i saw him first, he was looking at other side but when opening the image at home... i saw his eyes, watching at me.
I read them...

I went back the following day, to offer him the only things i was able to: a smile.. a word, maybe..
But the old shop was empty.

Sunday 16 September 2007

leaves heard..


"..but memory is an autumn leaf that murmurs in the wind and then is heard no more...." words of K Gibran..
Here, at the old hospital at Arles, these leaves will always be heard... they keep the memory, the soul of the one who painted this same place in all beauty, with all feelings: Vincent Van Gogh..

image&text ©silvia marmori

Saturday 15 September 2007

just for a woman's love..


A tango poet, Homero Expósito, wrote once some verses about a woman that had left him, at the tango : Flor de Lino

Flax's flower, I see you in the star
that illuminates the track
of my solitude...
absence flower, your memory
always hunts me
through my eternal longing's night.

Many centuries before, and with the same pain at his heart, a man arrived at this place I shot, when these stones and walls were a palace.. he begged his brother reigning here to help him to have again his wife, kidnapped by a shepherd/ prince..
I don't know which words he used, but he was convincing... an army departed.. thousand of men fought for ten years a terrible war.. gods flying and blood spreading over far fields overseas.. finally, he recovered her..

So, this image, taken at Mycenae, Greece is for Agamemnon, the understanding brother... Menelao, the sad husband.. the two Homer, the tango poet and the epic genius.. for the one, whose name wasnt flax's flower, but Helena.. and for the souls of all soldiers and warriors from both sides dead at Troy, following a crazy adventure , just for a woman's love..

image and text © silvia marmori

Friday 14 September 2007

a dream..


Life had been hard..
Many times he had asked himself why? How?… there had been no answers.

The worst part of the day was in the mornings, when he woke and realized that nothing had changed. Same routine.. walking along the dirty streets, looking for food in garbage cans, avoiding the police and other homeless, who would attack him heartlessly.

That night he had decided it would be the last. His hopes had been lost in some dark alley, maybe on a cold day, many winters ago.
He took his bag and the shabby cover, the only things that he owned, and went to the same place where he had been sleeping for a month.
It was a stinking backstreet, but at least empty of other souls.
He smoked until he scorched his fingers with the last butt he had and closed his eyes. When he opened them again, he would go to the bridge and he would end it all.

However, in the middle of the night, he stood up as if demented. A big noise and many shouts.. but he saw nobody and the racket went on.
He took his things and ran away.. the last night had to be calm, calm as the brown waters of the river he would face in few hours…
Suddenly , his scampering stopped at a small lake he had never seen in the west of the city.. a park.. a small sanctuary…

He laid down there, but he couldn’t sleep… the fresh air, the trees moaned in the dark.. how was it possible that he had never been there before!
After the birds woke him as they began to announce that the sun was rising, when the dark faded and the green pervaded his senses and soul, he decided to delay for a few more minutes.. the river would be always there, waiting for him.

How beautiful was that place! He breathed deep, he perceived his blood warming his body. Small leaves brought by the soft breeze danced at his feet.. he took one.. how nice it felt!
Nature affected him.. made him remember his childhood, his youth. He had been happy once....what had happened to his dreams of before, to his ideals .. to his strong will!

But suddenly all became dark… he heard voices, a foul air suffocated him. When he opened his eyes he was still at the same place where he had slept all of the last few weeks.. he longed to cry and he did.
Leaving his things, he ran to the bridge.. he stood there, looking at the dark waters, ready to jump..

A fragile small leaf flew from his hand to the river…

He sighed.. wiped his tears and tried a weak smile.


text &image© silvia marmori