After a long stay of depression,
he awoke on his motorbike
beneath a searing rainbow sunset.

The mountains arched silhouettes
as he tore through the highway
in the still-image of youth.

Slow evenings spent unwinding,
numbing himself with changes
and the crudeness of a new tongue.

On the shoulder of Kalasin,
in a nowhere-town province,
he had tasted everything.

Ate with his hands
on decorated tables,
trekked the petrified forest

on Christmas Eve;
somewhere between all of this,
he finally learned to live.

After a long stay of depression,
he rolled away the stone.
Found himself six thousand miles

from anyone he had known.
No one can speak English here.
Today, he learned the word for ‘home’.