Another year is over

and things are standing still by

moving quicker than I know to walk.

It’s been the year of

            home-coming, re-settling

job-starting, overtime-making

protest-going, speech-writing, signatures-collecting

            pizzas in piazze in Verona

thesis-working, myself-presenting, on a copper platter of thistles

piercing-forsaking, beatles-forgetting-and-remembering like I do almost every year

missed chances and missed-all-kinds-of-things, connections, for example

book-reading (zero in May and October, four each in April, August and December, twenty-two-and-a-half in total)

            what feels like twenty writing-contest-entries and not one single win

despairing at small things, and gaining hope from the same

story-reading, out loud, in front of those I know, and strangers, and earning money for   my words for the first time

goodbye-ing and hello-ing

            train-riding and alone-walking

bicycle-riding in the hot stillness of a Heidelberg afternoon, along the river Neckar with laughter peeling from my friends’ mouths

exam-taking and summer days spent inside the library

Ticino-adventuring, bus journeys to remote villages in search for Hesse’s spirit in Montagnola or dinners after dusk under the stone pergola at a table for twelve in Sessa

long to-do-lists and wishing for a quiet evening at home

a December’s worth of trying to get into the Christmas-spirit

            and finally quiet and warm Christmas days –

it’s been a year, I realize only now while writing this, full of happiness and sadness and all the things in between, which is that which we call life,

and it was good.