ash summer diary

that summer of 2022 i sold a few small canvases that i had painted in the manner of baselitz: soul-searching colours and upside down dreams - i felt no joy - there was no rain for two months in june and july - fires consumed forests and moors in several parts of our region - villages were almost burned -  firemen were exhausted some went mad and started more fires themselves they were drunk on danger and heat - nobody counted the animals birds and other creatures who died in the fire only human lives counted - war had been ravaging ukraine for several months so probably not even those - millions of people fled their homes and sought shelter in other parts of europe - they had left with children, suitcases and their dogs, cats, rabbits, birds, guinea pigs - the covid pandemic slowed down - yet poisons continued to pour into rivers and seas and toxic fumes to rise in the air - the end of the world pressed its gaunt face to every window but they all turned a blind eye - that summer my dog died - she just lied down one morning on the kitchen floor and stopped breathing - i didn’t even have time to hold her in my arms - i dug her grave in the garden under the white camellia tree i carried her stiff and heavy body - had a last look at her glassy eyes  i couldn’t cry there was just a mute scream like a broken bone in my chest i couldn’t sleep for weeks i couldn’t go out for walks because all the roads were still marked with the traces of her steps and i didn’t want to cover them with my loneliness i just stood by her grave and stared at the black earth every morning - one day she came to me again as a white crow on a roof top - i had never seen a white crow before so i knew it must be a sign from her - i even took a photo of the bird but couldn’t understand what it meant - perhaps life was waving a white flag at me -  no more struggle - be still - keep silent - it won’t be long.


view from afar

about my victories they said:

it was a lucky strike.

about my failures they said:

this is your true worth.

my family. my friends. my enemies.

where are they now

to measure my freedom

with their bitter instruments?


nel mezzo del cammin

morning dew like honey on a thin slice of silence - a pause in the story;

you’re wondering whether too much was said and the cup may overflow. 

close your eyes, take a sip from the refreshing brew,

enjoy the absence.

the garden changes colours as summer fades away: 

frail petals, sweet on the wind’s tongue - 

they expect the arrival of a new orchestra of foliages and whispering trees -

evanescent music for the days of self-forgetting; 

a new beginning seems so obvious here, at the end of the world: 

its asymmetric pattern grows like ivy around the old (overwritten) story; 

no more borders between memory and dreams: 

just a river of smoke and dead flowers rushing towards the forgiving ocean; 

the seagulls’s screams make you no longer feel besieged, bereft, beset;

be brave! chin up! in no time you’ll be gift-wrapped for the stars.

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