You
travel beautifully.
Flight,
escape, the fulfillment of a promise;
There
is a world elsewhere and this is it.
You’re
not depleted by the journey.
With
every mile that disappears beneath your wings
You become more thrillingly yourself.
You
step lightly from the plane
As
from a refreshing shower.
You
appraise the airport, pleasantly surprised
By
its crisp decor and refreshing fragrance.
You
appreciate the little things
They’ve
done to make you welcome:
Lavender
and white rose.
We
chose a city neither of us knew;
We
said we’d make it ours.
Nobody
we know has ever been here -
And
not because they chose to stay away.
We
did our homework, vetted the place thoroughly
For
any hint of cholera, terrorism
Or
hostility to guests from overseas.
Everything
we learned about the city
Stiffened
our resolve to make it ours.
*
A
city street, a rainy night. A night to be indoors.
The
wind is more specific: A night to take refuge
From
the wind -
an observation that the wind
Might
well have made a million times before;
The
kind of thing Victor Borge might have said.
No
matter where you thought you were
- I saw his show in London and New York -
This
was his city and he your genial host:
Welcome
to Vienna...
But this is not Vienna.
Because
I’m always late
I
arrive forty minutes early and kill time
By
caving to a habitual conceit:
I’m
in the wrong place.
I’m
waiting on the wrong corner - and I know
From
uncommunicable experience that a map
Will
never help me relocate myself.
I
used a map to choose our meeting place
Long
before I had a chance to see this street
Or
stand on this street corner, which seemed to me,
From
studying the map, the perfect point of vantage
From
which to see our city at its best:
To
get to know its people at their best,
And
learn its public ways, its secret life.
But
now I’m here - if here is where I am -
This
corner’s not the place I thought it was.
It
doesn’t occupy a place of prominence
In
any area that may be called
The Montparnasse of
anywhere.
It’s
not the sort of place where you can stand
Secure
in the knowledge that where you are
Is
where you always knew you’d be
When
the time was right. The
time is right
But
these are not the people I was promised:
The
auspicious, shining spirits who assembled
At
a brilliant corner of my mind -
So
similar in so many, many ways
To
this unwholesome, half-deserted place
That
the resemblance is, to say the least, uncanny -
Knew
the sympathetic magic that drew us here
And
would recognise, I’m sure,
The
desperate inertia that keeps me here
And
bids me in the stern voice of destiny,
Be
still and wait.
