Black Ox Orkestar
Nisht Azoy

Today I felt a strength inside, more of an energy than a strength, that I didn’t think I had.

I was heading to a wild meadow, above my house, with a friend of mine, also a friend of Giovanni, the boy who passed away. We had to go through a courtyard, where many little houses open onto. It’s a glimpse of the world apart, because it’s in the hilly area of Verona, but it resembles certain places in Sicily, where old women brew their own bitter liqueur at home and never miss the chance to drink it sitting on a wooden chair at their doorstep, studying every stranger passing by, which is about 2 a day.
Otherwise, it's just sun and cicadas, sweat and hanging laundry, tanned children in tank tops playing hide and seek while enjoying a milk bun with 4 slices of soppressa inside. We got there and were immediately engulfed by this klezmer music. Strange!
Maybe because it's a place with many gypsies... I couldn’t even distinguish which window it was coming from. Me and my friend looked at each other.

It was our green light. In the middle of the courtyard, we began to dance, each lost in our own world, only looking at each other if our wandering gazes met by fate. The children threw away their games, their pebbles, and ran to us. They started dancing randomly, wildly, each one a child of a rhythm only they felt. The one thing uniting everyone was a big smile, from ear to ear.
Soon after, my friend and I picked them up and pretended to be improbable airplanes, our flight jolting to the beat of the music. One child's sandwich fell, but it didn’t seem to bother him; in fact, he felt more FREE to move. The mothers came out of their houses with some curiosity, which then turned into warmth. Clapping in stereo highlighted our dance. The stray cats watched us curiously, not too frightened, as they kept a safe distance. All that was missing was a full moon looking down on us with a sly smile and a drunken laugh. Maybe it was his energy that created this for us.

We feel more united now, and we thank him. One of the most intense moments of my life.