There are places that cannot simply be visited. They are places to be inhabited with the heart.

For me, they are the countryside along the River Po, between Brandizzo and Mezzi Po, the paths that wind through tall fields of wheat, the gentle hills where the wind seems to know the name of every flower. They are simple places, without monuments, without grandeur. And yet they hold a richness that has been calling me back for many years.

It is there that I return whenever I feel the need to listen.

I walk slowly among the wheat. I let the colours, the scent of the earth, the song of insects and the movement of the clouds guide my thoughts. I am not searching for anything in particular, and perhaps for that very reason, I always find something.

Then they appear.

The poppies.

Light as a whisper, fragile as a caress.

They do not dominate the landscape. They ask for no attention. They simply exist.

And in their very existence, they transform a field into poetry.

Every time I encounter one, I feel the same sense of wonder I knew as a child. That vivid red emerging from the green of the wheat is like a spark of freedom, a small flame kindled by nature to remind us that beauty has no need to make noise.

I gather them with respect.

Always with gratitude.

For I have never regarded these flowers as mere material to be used.

I have always regarded them as a gift.

Within every petal lives a story of sunlight, rain, wind and time. There is the patience of the earth and the lightness of the sky. There is something ancient that does not belong to humankind, yet is offered for us to receive.

From those petals, my red is born.

A delicate red.

A fragile, living red.

A pigment without arrogance. A colour that preserves the memory of the flower from which it came.

A red that seems to breathe.

Each time I prepare it, I am amazed by its nature. It is intense, yet light. Present, yet almost weightless. Just like the poppy itself.

Perhaps that is what I have been seeking for so many years:

not merely a colour, but the mysterious passage that transforms an encounter into matter, a walk into a creative gesture, a flower into a trace of light.

My exploration of the red of the poppy began a long time ago, and it continues to this day. It is not a technical pursuit.

It is a search of the soul.

Because every pigment gathered from nature carries within it a teaching.

The poppy teaches me lightness.

It teaches me that one can be intense without becoming heavy.

That one can be luminous without seeking to be seen.

When I walk through the fields, with the wheat swaying and the wind gently touching the flowers, I feel that art is born long before colour itself. It is born in listening.

It is born in silence.

But it is not an empty silence.

It is a silence filled with presence.

The music of the wind moving through the wheat.

The music of leaves brushing against one another.

The music of insects hidden in the tall grass.

The music of clouds drifting slowly across the sky.

A music that is heard not only with the ears, but with everything we are.

In those moments, I feel that nature speaks.

It uses no words, yet it tells stories.

It does not teach, yet it guides.

It asks for nothing, yet it transforms everything.

Every flower, every blade of grass, every breath of wind becomes a note in an invisible score that has always existed and will continue to be played long after we are gone.

To walk among the poppies is to step, if only for a moment, into that ancient music.

It is to remember that we are part of the same harmony.

That the earth breathes.

That light sings.

That colour is only the visible echo of a deeper melody.

And perhaps it is there that my red is truly born.

Not only from the petal gathered with reverence.

But from the meeting of the flower, the wind, the light and that musical silence that dwells in the fields and never fails to move me.

It is born in the ability to pause before a flower and recognise that within its fragile red petals lives an infinite beauty.

And perhaps this is where the meaning of it all resides.

Not simply in gathering a poppy.

But in gathering a fragment of wonder.

Carrying it within me.

And transforming it, with love and respect, into a colour capable of telling, once again, the voice of the earth.