As my time in Berlin draws into slow winter, having braved every season from the summery height of wild epiphanies to the dwindling almost-peace of soulful autumn, if I can accept the full beauty of this city I will fly home grown.

Seeing is a resolute, undoubted strain of believing. This I must also accept. I came here with few expectations, I trained myself for months before departure: focus on the work, write into the night, learn the city backwards. I had not intended to fall in love.

Berlin, you are like the body of a new lover, I want to turn you over in a multitude of lights; morning, evening, the depths of never ending sorrow. I want to run to you when the world has run from me, you would (I know) always know what to say.

How far my life seems, beating on life support in Auckland, everything passing without a word, and I can still see (in my mind) the amber street lights across K Road, becoming red, becoming jade alive. I can see the same old ukulele beggar, sporting red bread boxes (her thrones) and the boy-men inside cafes, eating bread behind the till. My letter box is burgeoning plastic catalogues. The neighbours are still faceless midnight noises.

Berlin, you are the manifestation of myself into yourself, a tangible growth within the va of imagination. I will never be this young. Thankfully, people who live in their bodies have provided a respite to my water-falling words.

A few nights ago, I featured in the world premiere of Lemi Ponifasio’s Le Savali at the Berliner Festspiele. The German President opened the evening with a speech, out of the audience I rose and responded to him with Mau written especially for the occasion. The moment suspended me into a candid eternity. How will I return to my concrete box and eat into old clouds.

I am writing this post in retort of my own inclination to flee the inevitable, it is not a physical place, it is a point on the side of my skull where night grows (I carry the night with me always). Perhaps Berlin, you have armed me with a new dimension to brave a fifth season. Somewhere between your settling cold and the rising heat of Auckland.