Cracow Poem by Leo Yankevich

(for Meghan)

This dawn of fog and lingering dreams, you feel
the centuries in your waking body. Cracow
lies on a river at the foot of a hill.
Light and bells awaken senses. Black now
in shadows, hawkers fill the market square.
Pigeons greet your nose and eyes, and flowers.
You give a gnarly woman coins, and stare
up at the sky, and see the fairy towers,
the malachite-green roofs, above which rooks
fly north from Brno, Prague, or Budapest.
A fiddler plays his violin, and looks
up toward you, knowing you’re too soft and green
to pass him by. Your senses cannot rest.
The day begins, old, musty and serene.