Unterwegs

Let us meet at the station, and see where we go –
To the park, to sit under the shade of the trees perhaps, under the parasols of conker leaves,
and watch the pigeons heave
every crumb, every speck of dust between their beaks…
And in those grey streets, we’ll see none of the beasts,
which have haunted all our lightest dreams –
The shadows that hung, that draped the scene
and left us in the dark for months, and lean
towards a future that we cannot see.
———
So let us meet at the station, then,
and what happens after we can decide again –
perhaps the cafés will have reopened,
perhaps the concert halls will have chosen
to host another show before we leave.
Perhaps, then, we shall sit together, drink together,
laugh together as in those early days.
———
But for all these hopeful fantasies,
we shall only see
the leaves of spring trees standing in our way,
as we laze in our chimeric daze,
and see, perhaps, that this will never be.
———
But let us meet, in any case,
at the station, and let us haste,
and see which one of us will win the race –
The race to build the dreams of man,
the long-lost fantasies that so often can
drive those wood doves to lands crafted by unknown hands
and paint the picture of a timeless past.
———
And by the time we’ve both stopped dreaming,
stopped painting and stopped hastening,
Then perhaps it will be next Spring,
and no more will we need to hide in the shadows of the station wing.
———
Six O’ clock, and the day goes by,
the weeks, the months, the years,
how they sigh!
Perhaps it is better to abandon the fears –
indeed, of losing oneself in such fantasies!