Budapest

The stuka pigeons have been banished

from the black-bladed roofs of Budapest,

confined to iron rails,

on the prickly, shingled shores,

of the sleeping Buda,

and its Danubian companion.

This is a river so confident

in its own importance, it

flows east, - not west,

or north, or south;

rolling with the earth's turn,

it makes its own dark sea.

On the bank, empty fossilised shoes,

forlorn, speak with tongues of brass,

where Chinese tourists now gather.

Their shoes, are filled to over-flowing,

and point a way forward, as they progress

in digital frames, past the newly planted 

memory trees. Ginkgo biloba.

Here in Budapest

the dawn of a nation-earth

seems now,  to be a distinct possibility.

©Copyright Niall OConnor

Images borrowed from the Web

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