RIGA, LATVIA

 

I walk a narrow ledge far above the ancient city’s

teeming, it’s endless swerving cobblestones, it’s

Pushkin statue shining regal in the ribboned park.

 

(Poets loved and honored here).  A canal below

gleams blue near paths that curve through tall birch

trees, where smiling people stroll and gather.

 

I wander along the wild Daugava’s edge in Riga’s

chilly air. A stolid woman and her white-haired man

sit still so quiet on morning’s dewy grassy banks,

 

two fishing poles in thickened ruddy hands, long lines

thrust far out into the broad and rolling river.  They wish

to land three or four glistening fish to later eat at dusk

 

with potatoes and beetroot boiled, washed down with

shots of vodka fire, then with bellies fat with gladness,

he’ll whisper thanks to her, and mean it, for their pleasing

supper.

 

But now as evening’s northern light slants gold as melted

butter, as lush as monastery vespers in this Baltic state far

so far from home, you and I avoid each other’s eyes while

time flows fast and deep and final out to the Gulf of Riga.

 

On this day in late mute May we wait on the vast Daugava

for what’s unseen unnamed but breathing, for something

that might last, or not, yet we may never catch, nor ever

understand.