Leo Yankevich - Cracow

(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.

Leo Yankevich

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/cracow/