The first poem was inspired by a trip to London I took in 1987. I stayed in a hotel around the corner from Russell Square. Every morning at sunrise, I had coffee at a sandwich bar in Sicilian Avenue, then took a cup "to take away" and went through the smaller Bloomsbury Square to Russell Square and spent a leisurely half hour just strolling.
The second poem was inspired by my first summer participating in the American Institute of Musical Studies in Graz, Austria. A group of us students had been told of a wonderful restaurant called Häuserl im Wald (Little House in the Woods), which was indeed in the middle of a heavily wooded park. We set out on foot through the woods and got caught in a rainstorm.
RUSSELL SQUARE
In the slate air
a medieval mist
hovers, mingles
with the steam from
my Styrofoam cup.
I pass benches
that are moist from
night's lingering breath
and take slow steps
round the flower beds,
drawing slender sips
from my cup, savoring
the waking of my limbs.
The pavement
beneath my feet
shudders with a sudden breath
as a lorry passes
unseen. Beyond
antique roses
the great city stirs.
HÄUSERL IM WALD
With madcap exuberance
we forged ahead, swinging
our tightly furled umbrellas.
Cool drops from
piney clustered limbs
streamed in slim strands
down our hair,
into our collars, and we
chanted like children, giddy,
defiant of the thunder's
grumbled scolding.
Ahead lay the bright promise
of schnitzel and strudel.
Through the gloom
we went ever onward
toward the goal, undaunted
in primal mutual need,
leaving behind us not
a trail of crumbs, but
only the day's details.
© Leticia Austria 2013
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