Poem from 2017: BEFORE GOING ABROAD

 BEFORE GOING ABROAD 

 

we'll learn enough German

to get us through the basics

of politeness and asking for amenities,

so we don't qualify as ugly Americans

>
because I remember the time
I ordered a cafe latte for you
at a chain bookstore
in the Alberto Sordi Mall in Rome
>
and after two sentences of fractured Italian,
the counterperson took pity on me
and answered in English
>
she smiled as she did this,
and I'm guessing she was pleased
that I made the effort 
to momentarily take leave
of my native tongue

 

 

New poem: LONDON POEM #2

It was an easy walk

from the Underground station

down the stairway

into the village of Kew

on the outskirts of London--

we're blessed with a bright day

and an understated village square.

Just a quick stroll 

down an upper-middle-class street

with mostly compact

and a few mid-sized cars.

(Gasoline is too expensive

to warrant an excess of 

low-mileage cars in the UK.)

Rows of standardized houses,

all of them

two-story affairs.

Then, buildings containing flats (estates?)

probably built

sometime after the war

that threatened to erase

villages such as Kew.

And finally,

we reach the massive Kew Gardens

with the recreations of

rainforests and desert climates,

plus the Victorian glass greenhouse--

and the knowledge that somewhere on the gardens' edge

is the River Thames.

There will always be an England.

And I'm ever so happy

to have seen a quiet, manicured corner of it

at this point in my life.