Bow by Romolo

(fragments from my journal "The Druid's Way")

Sept 21th, 2023

We took over a garden and I suspect one of the previous owners to have been esoterically inclined. Amidst the bushes of oregano stands a magnificent orange sandstone the size of an anvil. It feels very much like a foundation piece and I have been drawn to this soft rock from the first day. It became my “altar“ and I often place feathers on it, dried-up butterflies or insects, flowers that have fallen from other trees. It’s like a space for things that deserved a better ending.
(...)

October 19th, 2023

Today on my way home I picked up the long ominous black branch that I spotted earlier this week. It was curved like an oboe. A tender rain fell over the soft street. I peeled off the bark with my thumb. Inside was the white ivory of the inner branch. I snapped it with the teeth-like fence of the playground. ”A flute,” I thought. I placed the tip of the branch against my lips and started humming a tune in the rain, my fingers effortlessly miming the notes. I felt like the satyr that I am.

November 29th, 2023

My role in this world is not that of the protagonist, the hero, but more of a side-character, the assistant, the helper, the flying carpet, the talking tree, the donkey defecating coins... I am someone who “functions in the background in regards to survival,” (Jenny Hval, The Practice of Love) I am the ageless wanderer, the misunderstood genius, the doomed loser, the teacher who shows up with cryptic exercises, the godfather/uncle who visits once a year with a useless artifact, the enigmatic friend who shares oracles rather than advice.
(...)


December 8th, 2023

I woke up at 7am, washed myself with a small bowl of water then walked to my atelier. The world was still asleep and magnificent. Nothing beats dawn. A pearl-colored waning crescent moon followed me through the branches of the trees, like the horns of a playful baby goat.
(...)

December 16th, 2023

I went to my favorite grove today and found a truly magnificent branch. It’s impossibly thin, covered by filigree moss, and curved in an unnaturally perfect semi-circle. Rather than a branch it resembles an extraterrestrial artifact or a sacred scythe. I picked it up and knew at once that it will be the first thing to go on the wall in my new apartment. I will hang it with the tips/horns upwards, so that it represents a half moon-shaped drinking bowl.

Romolo is a time-travelling druid, writer and troubadour. Genre: somewhere between Aladdin and Jack White.