Saturday, 1 June 2013

On a Fifth Visit to the Netherlands



The windmill is still there, not only as a sign
engraved on a spoon, and the painted canal boats glide
their way through the central streets,
                                                with bicycles and bells,
and somewhere there are fresh herrings
to swallow and cheese to taste.
But now, along with red light women in the windows,
the boys parade and the indeterminate, and cafés
provide pipes for marijuana, and there are shops
to sell the grossest images of stimulation.
We have seen a couple at a corner begin to kiss
the longest kiss ever undertaken, and watched a child
absorbed in play with broken bricks, and more—
a workman beside the tram, hammering cobbles, walk
in wooden clogs through the sandy soil of Amsterdam,

which is why I still have faith in the dykes this year.

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