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from a voyage to Siberia, China and the Far East. We begin a new series of verse reports below. |
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Postcard Poems from Paul |
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A World in Black-and-White Tones
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Late-spring
landing on Pacific shores of Russia
Shows the vestiges of winter’s hoary clutch
Amongst the ice-locked peaks
With snow that blankets everywhere except the coast.
The cutting wind relents but rarely in this land---
Harsh, cold, hostile---making people tougher
Than the bedrock underfoot.
Gaunt three-story concrete structures
Scattered here and there
Surrounded by the barren trees
Identify this town forlorn
The world forgot.
A washboard
runway made of prefab slabs
Brings this day’s plane to park alone.
A nearby worker shoves a two-wheeled set of access stairs.
We’re guarded by a chubby hardy fur-hat woman member of
the militia,
Smiling so much warmer than the pallid Nordic sun,
Breaking ice across the language clash,
Distracting us from worry over
Sugar-cone volcanoes looming silent right next door.
It’s quiet, till deserted streets are animated by a bus
in passing,
Dragging black exhaust.
Somewhere a dog is barking.
Life keeps sputtering with halting step in desolation of Camchatka
Where, uniquely, warming of the globe might prove a blessing.
--Mid-May, 2006, Petropavlovsk, Camchatka
Peninsula, Siberia
©2006 by Paul Hertelendy. The illustration is from IMSI'S Master Clips Collection, 1895 Francisco Blvd. E., San Rafael, CA, 94901-5506, USA. This column first posted June 12, 2006.
Poet Paul Hertelendy is also a critic with the San Francisco Bay Area arts website www.artssf.com. To visit his website, click here: PAUL
You can comment on this column online. Please address your message to either "The Editors" or Paul Hertelendy. To send an email, click here and don't forget to mention Paul's name: talkback@thecolumnists.com
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