Matteo Preabianca is a multilingual writer, educator, and linguist. His work explores the intersections of language, culture, and mobility, informed by a life lived across continents. An author of novels, journalist, and lyricist for the project NonMiPiaceIlCirco!, his creative practice is a dynamic blend of academic insight and artistic expression, often focusing on identity, displacement, and the music of human connection.
I walk. I need to reach the limestone cliff. There’s an old olive grove
there. Then I
go down to the sea.
The sun never leaves me. Even when it feels warm and generous, it
deceives
me. In the morning, it gilds everything. By afternoon, it pins me in
place.
As if to remind me: light is not only a gift.
I’m lucky I’ve chosen this path only in the late hours, when the heat
relents.
After that, I return to the shaded room.
Which really means: I stop moving, and the world starts to settle. I try
to hold its stillness,
gently balancing what I remember;
like a boat resting in a sudden calm.
I’ve wondered if the olives feel the weight of all that ripening.
And the lizards on the stone walls. Do they miss the breeze?
Around here, the sun fuels life.
As always, it depends on where you stand.
There’s nothing that is purely ancient.
But something can be entirely forgotten.
These days, it seems dust outlasts memory. That’s just how it is.
But if I treat it like a mosaic, one whose pattern emerges when you step
back,
then I might be able to see it, piece it together.
The sea reaches every shore it pleases.
I cannot.
Poetry in this post: © Matteo Preabianca
Published with the permission of Matteo Preabianca