Church of the Archangel Michael
1303 – Katowice
Turtle beans boil pink
surrounded by water like
some far off country that
whispers not forgotten.
Dreams go on sleeping
nearby me as I reach
to dial the simple 0-0,
any far off connection
but then delay that gift.
Dress instead, wool socks,
gloves and scarves for
wind that snaps my face,
biting both ankles as
muzzled dogs run alone,
outside gray buildings
where ghost trams slide
back down. A man mutters
Slovak behind my back.
Climbing up, the far up and
up, coal dust waits in a cloud,
squeezing in until choking,
struggle on to a clear crest,
where slender birches glitter,
silver lattice on an iced trail.
The flakes and clouds lift
up, sail off the ground.
Such a small building this
where white logs taper for
beams and beams to spire as
ungloved I curl in the low door,
only soles of my feet hear how
the crystal sky stands laughing.
Slucham: I am listening
Do not shift this
brown felt darkness.
Clicking doors close,
whiff of too much heat,
cellar piled with coal.
Leather soled prints
pass, dark with dust.
This is solitude as
silver frost settles,
on scaffold steeples,
five story slate roofs,
my own spiked hair.
There is nothing new,
steel chiseled consonants,
this startle in front of
purple wrapped chocolate,
glass bottles of vodka in
this late night delicatessen.
Remember the wrapped wind,
rustling down smudged alleys,
blowing into tiled doorways.
Hold so very still.
Slucham, I am listening.
