A Day, A Season

(Mainz, Germany)



At dusk suddenly shrubs
blacken like over-ripe fruit.

Cries of children playing
soccer diminish. In last light,

women walk dogs in the park
before winos shuffle in,

rustling like cockroaches.
These and other gestures

of light, air, traffic, hunger,
routine, and business seem this

evening profound enough to be
called seasonal. The evening

seems large. There was the solitary
dying sunflower in the old woman's

garden today. Its sagging head
looked tragically rotten. Its

sad, dappled leaves hung like the fins
of a beached sea-mammal. Old

people boarding the bus now
in Mainz-Bretzenheim climb

into gray light. The bus
groans away from the curb.



hans ostrom 1980/2013