For the first time - Italy

Evening spreads laburnum o´er the roofs
and pale pink of breath, moves mountainward.
Pier after pier, the M - way bridge takes you on
- along by the Serles - into the land of the sun.

Bittersweetness clings yet to skin and tongue
and in ones face a vestige of the dreaded Wall.
But the Stubaier Alps rise and stretch
- to the Kalkkoegeln - in the far horizon.

Then from every pore, the journey´s wind washes
the grimy grains of memory away,
and o´ver the tarmac sweeps the fresh and youthful sun
- in stately pomp - on to the frontier.

(Nachdichtung: Derek Donaldson)