The land of Italia exists in a dichotomy between extraordinary beauty and constant peril. Earthquakes, landslides, volcanic eruptions and mortal sea are not distant echoes from history books, they are part of everyday life. However, those who easily think what happened in Craco was just another disaster in the long line of history of the Mediterranean, could not be more wrong. The city is suspended in an existential in-between: it has been shattered, but not wiped out.
Rebuilding is not possible, it is damned to be a ruin. Since just a few decades have passed, the former city lives vividly in its citizens memory. Despite the increasing interests in the recent years, giving any false hope would be inappropriate: we cannot pretend to defeat nature, we cannot pretend that this unhabitable monument is habitable.
If there are still possibilities to be among the remains, it is just for a short time. Like gazing them in a sunny day - when the always-high ecliptic gives a sharp light and casts deep shadows - and wondering:
What was the life behind those bright yellow ruinous walls, in the dark?
In the cool dark of a shadow?
Under the pile of debris?
In the empty dark behind the broken frame of a window
Or in the mysterious dark hole of a cracked roof?
Those places are the remnants of the previous life.
Those are the places worth to remember.
Those are the places worth to build on.
Rebuilding is not possible, it is damned to be a ruin. Since just a few decades have passed, the former city lives vividly in its citizens memory. Despite the increasing interests in the recent years, giving any false hope would be inappropriate: we cannot pretend to defeat nature, we cannot pretend that this unhabitable monument is habitable.
If there are still possibilities to be among the remains, it is just for a short time. Like gazing them in a sunny day - when the always-high ecliptic gives a sharp light and casts deep shadows - and wondering:
What was the life behind those bright yellow ruinous walls, in the dark?
In the cool dark of a shadow?
Under the pile of debris?
In the empty dark behind the broken frame of a window
Or in the mysterious dark hole of a cracked roof?
Those places are the remnants of the previous life.
Those are the places worth to remember.
Those are the places worth to build on.