I still remember arriving at the residency apartment in Eppan, Bolzano/Bozen, in spring, and noticing the ivy wound up on the staircase leading up to the door. Then the creeper was bare, its leaves curled up like newborns. By the time I left, the foliage had taught itself to crawl.

Now, upon my return a few days ago, I found interspersed between the red-green vegetal organs, bursts of inedible berry-like fruit growing wildly, with abandon. Even the orchards, which then were full of blossoms, are now pregnant with apples. The olive trees that stud the pedestrian paths have also come forth with new offspring; black and green. Now is the time of harvest. Now is the season of gathering and chestnut roasting. Did I ripen too? Am I now readier? Did I also secretly mature?