Piero says,

The poem deals with wintery and artistic themes but with a kind of bittersweet sarcasm. We can only be half happy in 2020.

It touches the very public – the idea of partying, snow season, astronomy – and the very private –

a couple of verses in my Venetian dialect about a local artist (a friend of my grandparents) whose artwork I would see at their house during this season. 

The form of the poem is invented, but its tight structure and internal rhymes might sound slightly courtly to some.

Illustration by Perri MacKenzie