© Helmut Hauke / helmuthauke@hotmail.com / helmuthauke.com

Don’t ask me how
Wanderlust hit home,
Moored in winter’s monochrome.

Dark, uncombed trees
Waved from salty ground.
The food seemed inedible.
The climate, though, was drinkable.

I must have frowned because
Nearby one sweetly wry
Smile agreed: “I know!
Be welcomed to this show!”

Land, sea and air
Stepped aside and sang
Lovesongs in coarse sailers’ slang.

Spring days set sail,
Dirt tracks became cars,
Funfair sweets and cheap cigars.
From nights still cold, come day we strolled

Into bucolic scenes,
A note of orange juice
Roving in her kiss –
I’m tender, cured like this.

They say life is so short
And that art is longer.
I tried to find my muse
In dry lands and rain –
Too cold in the taiga,
Too hot in the toga.

Well, as for now:
Who am I to know
Where this summer’s songs will blow.

Winds shall swarm in,
Sand off all its sheen,
Play trees like a tambourine
For Salome, her new ballet.

On cooling roads ahead
A mournful carrier bag’s
Dancing in warm air,
Alive in autumn’s stare.

We’re rioting like leaves,
All awe and vertigo,
Touched by chance’s hand,
This never-promised land.