They cut a hole inside the concrete floor in front of the tallest building, the one that casts its shadow over the belfry of the cathedral, dampening the ring of its bells.

Inside the hole, a tangle of roots, wet and hard, heaved, breathless from the burrowing, like sweating tissue inside an open wound.

A musty odour rolled out and over the pavement of the city towards the dark river, summoned by its changing tides, leaving a dark imprint on the white concrete as it flowed.

I stared into the hole at the roots.

Enveloped in darkness, clusters of light emerged like boats out at sea- fishing boats blinking their lights over a vast and immense expanse of space.

A city seen from above, in its complexity and multiplicity, flattened, unraveled, cast out as a net in which constellations are caught.

Like when observing a galaxy, more becomes visible the further away we get.

Moving vehicles are light signals, pulsating through the night, roads the lit-up arteries that connect urban organs together and keep them irrigated and alive.

When seen from above these electric networks appear as mystical and poetic systems, devoid of their mechanics.

Night reveals the delicate essence, the tenuous connections, but it also erases nuances: the small details need to be stumbled upon in order to become visible again.

Come back to the ground, and look up: the sky is never black, but a milky hue that absorbs all the light spilling out from streetlamps and windows, suffocating the stars, lost in that bright labyrinth.

And the roots that heave below the pavement, waiting for a crack to return and reclaim the surface with their throbbing, uncontainable grace.

Every little twig will burn.

Listen here.

This month’s credits:

“Roots” written and narrated by Chiara Ambrosio with soundscapes by Bird Radio.

“Sleeping under trees”, a conversation with artist and performer Jo Roberts.

“The Lady” written and performed by Rude Mechanicals.

It fades into view-

My home, my vessel, airborne and unmoored.

The city, my body, my story.

A place and a time, to settle over all other places and times

Like dust on a table.

No more than a mote, but I move through these streets like electricity, for a while,

And they are crowded with the living and the dead,

And their stories, buried in the ground, will turn to brick

and rise once more.

A fold in time, 

And the years gather together on the shores of this river, 

watching a familiar face appear, once more,

against the darkening sky.

Same eyes, same hat, same words in the mouth,

hands folding yellowing paper-

ancient secrets, simple spells, still hidden, still crumpled, still lonely.

Turn the pages of the night,

a black book on which silver ink glistens, tracing shapes twice forgotten-

A bird, a flight, a wilderness before the flood.

Backs turn as I walk by.

The city, our stories, our darkness,

A gathering of elements on the horizon, 

Fire and ice rewriting the boundaries of our loneliness

While we stand in doorways, waiting for the storm to blow over.