A small presence

I don’t even know how I ended up there.

It was April 30th, 2012, deep in the heart of Alta Murgia National Park.

Solitary cornflower, Alta Murgia National Park
April 30th, 2012
In a hidden corner of silence and light,
nature whispered softly.

A patch of slightly taller grass, half-hidden, near a field that wasn’t really a field. Maybe I wouldn’t have noticed it if I hadn’t lowered my gaze.

But the little one was there, waiting. Without sound. Without hurry.

This flower — a solitary cornflower, far from its kind — wasn’t asking for attention. And perhaps that’s exactly why it got it.It took me a moment to realize it wanted to be seen just as it was: side-lit, in silence, up close. Like something that has nothing to prove.

I took the photo carefully, breathing slowly. Not out of fear of ruining it — but to preserve the moment. And for a second, it seemed even the wind had stopped moving. A small, fleeting miracle. The kind that lasts only as long as it’s seen.

The cornflower, flower of fields and waiting, carries the delicate nobility of things that do not ask. Once common, nearly forgotten. But sometimes it returns, quietly, among the wheat or along a path. 

Like certain thoughts that resurface on their own, without explanation.

A young voice sings in an ancient tongue. A clarinet moves like wind in the grass. The electronic textures don’t take up space — they touch it gently.

The piece is called “Góða tungl”, meaning “Good moon”, and it was the first single released by the Icelandic group Samaris, when they were still teenagers. The singer, Jófríður Ákadóttir, uses texts from old Icelandic poems, building a bridge between tradition and modernity.

Despite their youth, the trio crafts a suspended, intimate atmosphere, full of sonic chiaroscuro and pauses that feel like breath. A bit like that cornflower, standing there, quietly waiting to be seen.

Listening to it, you feel like seeing things up close. In silence. Maybe even the moon. 

Or a flower.