1.    What We Saw
 
The setting sun’s reflection sailing towards us, a distant cliff’s
pink terrace tilted on the water whose ghost ships fade
into the sandy green; ice cities, churches, an aqueduct; up close
the shepherd’s dog is half leopard, half sheep, the birds bats;
the fisherman has been drinking and another bird,
too large and red-eyed for its branch, looks out of
a shadowy corner that seemed, as we looked, to refer to our arrival.
The shepherd faces the empty tree. The peculiar backstroke,
Icarus disappearing into centuries of waves,
is played onto the water behind him. The ship’s hands,
past masters of the averted gaze and redundant detail,
have their backs to us and the wind pushing them out to sea.
 
2.    Round and About
 
Much-delayed by faulty trams and a misread sign we’re halted,
outside the museum, by a smashed tv on the footpath,
fallen from who knows what heights, its screen
a glittering edge on red wire and green and silver circuits,
its crocked, fallen, akimbo openness a guess
at how that morning it entertained the gathered family
for an hour, in Dutch, while – on our way – we walked bitter squares,
buying bread and milk and photographing iced-up fountains,
you out of focus in your scarf, looking away at the elaborate
railed windows, the art nouveau roofs and doorways.
The casing we slowly left behind, with backward glance
and upward look at its unlikely origin. No need
to go around stating the obvious, about endurance, or time:
something landed, out of nowhere, out of the ordinary,
through the same shaking light in which, later, at the Sortie,
diving for cover and catching up, everyone
and their mother waits for us, subtitles
disappearing into speech and proffered umbrellas.