Sant'Erasmo Reflections

22 March 2016

In the central distance of this image glows an open water gate in the protective flood wall erected around the agricultural island of Sant'Erasmo after the catastrophic flooding of 1966 inundated its fields with salt water, rendering the land sterile for a number of years afterwards. I've written a brief account of this before, but came upon this image again and wanted to do away with the crop I used before, and lighten the image to better show the canal's stillness and reflections. This was part of our regular boat route to the family farm where we bought our produce whenever we could, and a reminder of all the life in the lagoon that subsists still beyond the ruin visited upon Venice by Mayor Luigi Brugnaro and an administration (the latest in a long line of them) addicted to the supposedly easy money of tourism. It still amazes me that New York City has been able to implement strict regulations on AirBnB, while Brugnaro and his ilk pretend that nothing can be done in Venice to remedy the conversion of property that once housed residents into tourist accommodations, a great many of which are owned by just a few speculators. For all of its indifferent power, Nature is nowhere near as destructive as conscienceless men like Brugnaro.