This is a hand. Or to be more precise, it is a very old hand that was once attached to an equally old body. A decrepit body. You can make out the fingers, the knuckles, and the gnarled twisted bones. On closer inspection, you can guess at the lymphatic system, now simply empty grooves. This large dark hand, even though dead, looks as though it could snap open and grasp the first object or wrist that came into range. But the hand will never be able to move, because it has never moved in its whole lifetime. It did, however, once used to wave in a strong wind, tremble during storms, and shake when struck by other hands of different materials and consistency. It never grasped anything in its fingers and the rest of the body never rose to go, step by step, to find a different place to live in. Because this hand is not made of flesh but of wood. It is the gnarled branch of a dead vine. Between Valdobbiadene and Conegliano around 25 to 30 million vines stretch out in a great arabesque over the land. If we were to baptize each of these vines by twin-ning them with humans it would require half the population of the whole of Italy