The Beginning of the Alps

We ride by Alpine aspen trees and listen to the hum of the bus;
a back beat to the tour guide’s Spanish, English, German, spiel.

Napoleon’s defeat,
Ilba—18-year old daughter of the Austrian Emperor had a forced marriage to Napoleon.
History lesson:
peace treaty,
return home.
cuatro años.

Today,
highway and roadside industry, farmland,
concrete and asphalt and corns and grasses,
clear sky.

Cold skin against unfamiliar air conditioning,
benedictine monastery.

Vamos.

Romantic valley of the Wachauw:
apricot trees and vineyards,
sound of horse hooves on cobblestone streets,
kayakers and motorboats pass our tourist barge and 

across the aisle, the George Clooney lookalike 
— if George Clooney had been an accountant instead of an actor — 
smiles at a woman in the next seat.


© Christine Salkin Davis, 2018
















Comments

Post a Comment

Your comments and feedback are welcome. Please be sure to be respectful.

Popular posts from this blog

Letter to my future self

I didn't think this storm would ever end, but, in the end, it was just like all the other storms of life, louder perhaps, deafening really. Some people died, some unexpectedly, some jobs were lost. Were you surprised by the urban dustbowl mentality? Some necessary things weren't. Wounds festered openly. Surprising connections held. Some egos lost, after a time. Some courage remained. Terror and boredom, the have-have not divide widened. We became our brothers' keepers. I wonder. Yet, the lizards lay in the sun and the birds still sing. © Christine Salkin Davis, 2020
Read more

End of Life Communication: Stories from the Dead Zone (excerpt)

Hello, friends, I have taken a pause from writing poetry to finish a book manuscript. I just sent it to the publisher; you can be on the lookout for it to be released in the fall ( End of Life Communication: Stories from the Dead Zone , co-authored with Dr. Jon Crane). In the meantime, to thank you for your patience as we finished the book and I now catch back up on writing poetry, here is an excerpt, from the closing chapter: Coda “The world we live in is but thickened light” (Emerson, 1904, p. 580). The team invites me to the hospital’s annual “Butterfly Ceremony,” a commemoration in memory of the children who have died at the Children’s Hospital this past year. I’m excited to go, but my interest becomes bittersweet when I notice the date. It is the 24 th anniversary of my father’s death. The memory of his death is so fresh and painful, he could have died yesterday following his 18-month struggle with prostate cancer. It is a beautiful fall day. Sunny and warm. I
Read more

Still the Birds Sing

The bug looks like a small black Volkswagen driving in circles on the wooden railing; suddenly, a flying car. The birds sing and the wind blows and the sun shines and the dandelions grow in the recently cut grass; yellow dots pock the green grass. A female cardinal swoops to the bird feeder, then a finch, reds and browns and grays and seed debris drops down, and the birds sing, melodious. The sky milks blue and clouds float and branches sway from the trees. The birds multitudinous sing antiphonally--           call, response, recall. Light shadows the ground. Still the birds sing. © Christine Salkin Davis, 2020
Read more