Mankind is such a beginner
at this business of living in a finite world.
Soviet society, European society, American society.
I walk the streets and scan the faces.
I see young girls on a playground;
the boys are just becoming real to them.
A mother pushes a baby carriage looking so serious.
Men, hard eyes, walking and smoking pass me.
Motorcycles, signs, shop windows
and traffic all around.
The sky shimmers over stones
that have stood here 'just so' for centuries.
And the newspapers gather in many tongues
on the racks, murmuring.
Today, I am here ... tomorrow I'll be gone
into the sky.
Money and power and history pulse
just out of sight,
just behind the headlines.
It stares from the windows of banks
and government offices
while mothers walk, children play
and the waiters wait.
The crowds swirl by the newspaper racks
and the boys preen for young girls
and the leaves stir in the grass.
The air is cool here in Luxembourg
where I walk in a breeze
that feels like the silence in my mind.
Bridges and greenery, moss stone walls,
a European park.
The movies begin
and the faces pass;
Moscow, Leningrad, Paris, Los Angeles
So many stories of right and wrong;
Socialist, Capitalist, hunger and wealth.
Empty eyes, happy eyes, righteous eyes, proud eyes,
eyes that cannot see the mother
and cannot feel the breeze.
The symbolic mind ascendant;
trade, war, credit, capital,
the balance of power.
The windows stare above the streets
and soft counters fall; papers signed,
symbols agreed upon
And outside, love and compassion,
the child skins his knee,
The young girls dream, the couples walk,
a nun asks me in French for Rue St. Michael.
Innocence in the sunlight
while the newspapers whisper
The symbols gather against the silence and peace
soft counters falling ...
counting the days, the dreams,
the dollars and the moments.
Where is sanity?
gallagher
09 Jul 87
Luxembourg