A Venetian Tale

Built on water I saw this great city standing in the morning sun. The roofs glistened
while birds flew over the clear blue skies. At Santa Maria della Salute, I tried to greet the face of the lagoon. Its sadness reflected in my retina, I cried her tears of long lost love.

The world had turned into a different way of being. Life had become fast paced, on the hunt for success. The city remembered its peak days and with it came melancholy. She sighed deeply and awaited the streams of tourists coming in before the first cafes opened. She remembered how it took part in the amorous endeavors of Casanova, his passion, his games of flirtation and love. She remembered the painters and writers, the forsaken, the young and old that had dwelled in her embrace, the lagoon softly swaying everyone to sleep. She had resonated with the exuberance of her inhabitants over millennia, even remembering the grueling parts of the pest. She was young, wanted and had welcomed visitors from the orient with their strange looking clothes and elegant merchandise. She remembered how she had been fatigued of the events that unfolded underneath her warm embrace. Now she had become sad and spying on the little love affairs that sometimes unfolded in her calles late at night. She watched over the lovers in the gondolas and wished for different times than those that she was experiencing now. She realized how old she had become, still proud of her facade, of her churches and palaces, but underneath she felt tired.
At night she liked to hum everyone into a comfortable sleep, something so brilliant and shining that no one realized that she was holding everyone in her loving arms. She sang to them her old love songs, her arias of unrequited love. She filled the sleepless with wonder so that they may become deep sleepers. Some resisted, but still knew that she was there for them. Forgetfulness started being her every day romance. She knew she was becoming a sleeping city. Where were the young ones, the ones that held her firmly in their embrace. The ones that still knew her heartbeat. Not many were left, but a new arrival had peaked her interest. Her name was Ezekiel and with her the city had been catapulted out of her slumber.