We meet in the
lobby, Votapek piano concert
intermission, between the Chopin and Debussy,
“Wovon sind Sie? /Where are you from?” I ask
her, I’ve seen her around at a couple of other
concerts this month, about eighty, mangled,
stringy white hair, a face-body that says belle
in the old days, “Ich bin von Deutschland/ I’m
from Germany, Cleves,,,,you know, the Princess
of Cleves, und wovon sind Sie? /Where are you
from?” “ Was denken Sie? /What do you think?”
“Bavaria,” I smile, tell her I’m from Chicago,
“Ich kann das nicht glauben,/ I can’t believe that,”
not wanting to be from Chicago but always
Ezra Pounding through La Isle Joyeuse /The
Island of Joy, Jardins sous la Pluie /Gardens in
the Rain, somewere back in a little great restaurant-
castle-cathedral town surrounded by town friends,
all my relatives, and when the live ones end,
the cemeteries......
After
After Mein Kampf,
Hiroshima, 9-11
erased, my (Bavarian) village still
there, the only new faces a gene-mix
of the old faces still/once there, wir haben nur
einmal und nichts mehr, gewesen zu
sein / We have only once, once and not
more
to be.
Group Therapy
