A Traveler's Souvenir

It isn't just the wonders of the world
that dominate my mind and memory.
Sometimes it is the trifles that cement
in me that dawning consciousness that
makes me suddenly aware, "I'm really here!
I've stumbled on that rare completion
of a dream I only dared to think about."
Of this old globe no other part
retains its power to capture me
so well as one exciting synthesis
of light, of tower and of art.

      

However it's the unspectacular
that moves me most of all.
I've seen magnificence in Rotterdam,
Brussels, Munich and New York--
all wonderful, and yet it was
the transient things
that framed a city for me then
some fifty years ago. They would again
if they remain today: those little
bookstalls along the Seine.              
            ~

Reviews

[Delmar Cooper]

It is for me the people along the route. It is as if I didn't come to see Rome but to meet a Roman. I met a man in Nice, an old man that had an ancient souvenir shop. I bought French postage stamps for a nephew. Mostly I remember the old man and our hand waving conversation.

So, that is how I understand your poem. N'est-ce pas?

[Dean]

perhaps for you, it is

[Beccy]

A memory from half a century ago. How much more lasting it has been than a little glass ornament or some other such frippery one might pick up along life's pathway.

This is precious, thank you for sharing.


Beccy.

PS. I'm a country girl born and bred, but there is something magical about the city, though only in small doses for me.

[Dean]

HEY, Beccy, I love country girls, and have known quite a lot of them. Good, now, to meet another!read moreHEY, Beccy, I love country girls, and have known quite a lot of them. Good, now, to meet another!