1. il-ġebla

english translation: the rock

2024
i speak the language of the earth

i feel my body slipping into synch with the rhythms of the earth, subconsciously waning & waxing on time. the rocks sing me to sleep sometimes. the grass is my bed, the moss my blanket & my head rests on pillows of mushrooms.

this is where i feel most myself (other than by the sea)… walking barefoot in the grass, marvelling at birds’ nests, foraging for four-leaf clovers & lying in the sun while indulging in fresh gozitan bread

gozo emerges shimmering in my mind
like a dream from childhood

mushroom rock & other fairytales

ploughing patterns into the land

king of the beach

contemplations on bees & the secret worlds they create

scenes from some kind of outlandish dream

while the sea is still sleeping

we are built of the same rock,
the same sea,
the same sky

moulding to each other, meeting in the middle

2023
are you sleeping while i’m away?

your face seems softer each time i return; it’s as though time stops on the island when i’m not here... but perhaps that’s just one of the things we tell ourselves to hide in the dark.

2022
the golden days

& the living is easy

hands hard at work,
hands flowing like the waves

meditating megaliths

castles in the sky

incisions & remains

a man-made crevice
slicing through time

geological time is written in the rocks

a geological playscape

dust settles upon a lunar landscape

glittering seas

2021
looking for patterns in a scattered landscape

weaving new narratives from the disparate fragments left behind... it was the age of uncertainty, things changed slowly then all at once. we could all sense a new era on the horizon; so we distracted ourselves with the task of picking up the pieces, jumbling them up, & trying to form new patterns.

how to befriend a rock

like floating white clouds on the horizon

sirens who grew legs & climbed ashore

we are made of the same limestone we lie on & the sea we swim in,
their particles forever infused within our bodies

the island which shapes us,
such that we follow the same curves

the jagged edges of the island
are continuously slipping from under our feet

wrapped in dappled sunlight as we lay beneath the olive tree branches

boulders eroded slowly by the incessant soft kisses of the sea

ta’ rita

landscapes of infrastructure

2020
living in rocks by the sea

that summer the pandemic hit, we were like creatures crawling out of our homes to claim our own slice of seaside & sunshine

carved by water nymphs

as summer draws to a close, the coastal realm slowly becomes an uninhabited shell as we retreat to the island’s centre, leaving a string of traces behind

appendages of the coastline / human deposits

the architecture of inhabitation

the new doric

is-simenta:
what if islands just floated on the sea like rafts?

kappella fuq kemmuna

lunar landscapes

coastal extractions

fairy pools to bathe in

grottli telgħin mal-blat

dwellings, like seashells, cling onto the rocks & allows us to curl up in them

earth moulded by sea & sky

olive-picking & spiru

flower bed

2019
more stories from a limestone isle

reading the tales embodied within the rocks

ode to the sister island

ta’ krispu honey thief

the inhabited pathway

2018
upon returning to the rock

i experienced a newfound sense of what it means to come home. suddenly, the landscape i previously believed to be dull & uninspiring was emerging as an exciting & novel form, begging to be discovered. the rocks looked different now. their colour no longer appeared homogenous but lured me in, tempting me to wrap myself in their honey-coloured hues.