Only one cell in the frozen hive of night
is lit, or so it seems to us:
this Vietnamese café, with its oily light,
its odors whose colorful shapes are like flowers.
Laughter and talking, the tick of chopsticks.
Beyond the glass, the wintry city
creaks like an ancient wooden bridge.
A great wind rushes under all of us.
The bigger the window, the more it trembles.
Haiku-like. 'the wintry city creaks like an ancient wooden bridge' is spot on. The syllables somehow sound like the thing they are talking about. This must be one of his best.
Atmospheric, vivid. Makes me peep through that trembling window and reach for the the warmth in that cafe far beyond my reach and at the same time the wind makes me shiver. Beautiful!
dear ted, this is the haiku to your poem: night the shimmer of the city in the river