northfield july 12

at some point, the suitcase,
the old car packed blind,
the headlong tumble out of the tree
before the updraft and the sky.

after this, all glory, all beauty,
boredom of days and the heart's unease,
the long ballad written in blood.

the nest remains on the branch,
the old house on the same street.
you think you know that place,
but you can not discover it
in ten thousand things.

dkz

lake orion july 5

What is up with the purple martins?
One stands before their tall house and dances a funky circuit:
tail twitch, head left, wing shrug, repeat.
While his neighbors begin their raucous commute,
three silent geese converge on the dock.
The weightless sparrows blown aloft
chatter and panic in the still-black oak.
Waves lap the spreading warmth;
a distant boat whines low across the water.
The small island you swam to with your brothers is sinking:
the westernmost tree uprooted in the weekend storm
hangs tilted, a feast below its swinging roots,
a dogeared page in the lake's long history.
The soft air exhales its soft breath.
Queenly light advances on the water's face, on the trees,
edgeless grey sharpens to yellow-green, ice-blue,
promising purple and scarlet,
a guarantee of night.

dkz

the world is, the world is

48 hours ago, entering the Staatsoper for the final Katja.
36 hours ago, sleepy in a cab following the canal south toward the airport.
24 hours ago, somewhere over the icebergs, in between the Heathrow layover and the long drive out of Chicago.
12 hours ago, laughter and embraces in MtMn's childhood home.
Just now, in the truck driving to Starbucks in search of caffeine and Internet.

I parked among the other shoppers, who were laden with beer and hot dogs and chips and everything for the fireworks display tonight. People glanced up at the heavy skies, hoping the storms would pass quickly. I put the truck in park and the radio was saying,

"No his mind is not for rent
To any god or government
Always hopeful, discontent,
He knows the changes aren't permanent"

But change is.

dkz

Out of Office Reply

I wanted to take a picture of it in the fading light as I looked back through the open door. Computer screen installing updates, strangely clean desk, a few demure scores on the piano. My camera battery was used up in Budapest, though, and my arms were full of presents and my black suit jackets and a few folders of music and my bag. So I locked the door and walked across the plaza, looking up at my windows.

Last show, goodbyes, hugs, giddiness. I am no longer new. Screw you, Everest, I'm standing on you.

And of course, the boundary is false. Other transitions continue all around me. A wedding, a funeral, the first words of a foreign language, an anniversary, breakfast, lunch, haircut, Tuesday The wide, wide world.

There's so much more to tell, but the office is closed.

Schönen Sommer wünsch ich euch allen!

dkz

signs and portents

In the last 48 hours I have

- helped a cashier to her feet after she was shoved to the ground by a shoplifter, after helping another person keep said shoplifter from exiting the store,
- spent a weird five minutes during a first meeting with a new colleague trying to get the PIGEON that had flown through my open windows to fly back out again,
- had my sleep disturbed by extremely bizarre dreams, waking sure that there was someone in my room speaking to me, which of course was not the case.
What's up, universe?

dkz

Die Frist ist darn near um

Exactly one year ago today, freshly arrived in Vienna for an apartment-hunting visit,  I had brunch with new acquaintances FB and MStMB. We had been introduced on Facebook by a mutual pal (KGB, one of the world's nodal people, known and loved by all and with a talent for connection) and had never met face-to-face. I bought flowers on the street and just went right over to their house. Since then, I've spent a lot of time there, and so has MtMn, eating and drinking, listening to music, talking about film and music and TV and politics and language, laughing, crying, and then usually eating again.

One year ago this week, I was having meetings with strangers about an overwhelming amount of work in a language whose most primary colors were barely under my fingers. Since then, I've learned to be grateful every day for the generosity and energy - and talent to spare - of these colleagues. We have made a year of opera together in a very dramatic time of transition. We had a few triumphs, a few disasters, and many nights that ranged from undistinguished to excellent. A season like any other.

One year ago next week, I walked into this apartment. Here, I thought, which began a whole education in a variety of subjects including (but not limited to) banking, government, and how to talk to the cable guy auf Deutsch. We learned our new words for cleaning supplies, we learned to shop before Sunday, and we were happy to find out that IKEA is just about the same everywhere.

It hasn't quite been a year in Vienna, but one year ago today it all started to become real.

Last night I watched the third act of Walkuere out on the plaza, shoulder to shoulder with the crowd of people who stood silent and rapt as the music boiled down at them off the screen. I walked home in the warm night down the main street of the old city. In the Graben a solo cellist was playing Bach, and a small oasis had formed around him. A gelato parlor stayed open late, and people were eating cones and cups in the sticky summer air, listening quietly. I walked up the canal the rest of the way home, and the breeze was cool coming down the water from the north.

One year ago we didn't live here yet.

I wonder what June 2012 will be like.

dkz

death and the matron

I have wanted to go to the Zentralfriedhof since before I got to Vienna. The way it's shot in The Third Man is so beautiful, and it is even more beautiful in real, um, life. Even the cemetery here is elegant.

Life, of course, intervened after I got here. More than once this year I've thought that the new job would be the death of me, but of course that's typical human hyperbole as I continue to be relentlessly alive and have failed to make the time to get to the outskirts of town and walk among the former Wieners. But today - today was perfect, sunny and mild, weather begging for a bike ride and body begging for distraction.

See, this week, these weeks, are full of news from friends all over, news of turmoil and upheaval. Some of it is joyous: marriage, new jobs, babies on the way, surprising endeavors. Some of it is frightening: changes in health, in employment, in the idea and picture of the future. Is it an especially stormy spring, or does the current constant glut of information make it seem so? The picture of the flood, the ruin, is ever before our eyes. I wanted to go walking in the cool green, lots of people, no conversation, imagining myself (as one always does in a new neighborhood) living in one of the newer homes.

This here is the Trusty Steed, which multiplied its daily commute by a factor of 4.5 today for this trip. She was a champ. Lord, it's a pleasure to ride the bikeways of Vienna, although I'm still a little tense on the busy streets where cars are closer than I'm used to. But most of the way even as far out as Simmering is designated bike paths, pleasant and safe. You can ride your bike around in the cemetery too, but I locked mine up at the entrance.

The entire place smelled incredible after the last two days of rain, fresh and green. It also smells often of roses, and there are bushes and vines of wild and cultivated roses on many graves. Some are totally overgrown with ivy, some of the statuary is falling down, some graves are hand-washed and carefully tended with new flowers and white rocks. There are Eastern European tombstones with photographs of people and cars. There is a section for babies with toys and pinwheels. I saw a family spading up earth there, and I could not take a photo of that. I remember my own family gathering around a small place in my hometown's soil, just large enough for the tiny box. So many things fell apart after that, so many things fell together. When I think of my own dead, the shades that seem closest, I still think of that day, of our angel.

And I think of Alice, of course, of my grandmother, who also tended roses in her own garden. I was mentally planning my summer trip and was looking for a good day to visit her when I remembered that of course, I wouldn't. She came to mind often as I saw the many tombstones that referred to "seine lieben Bergen" - his beloved mountains. That's a fairly common theme, city transplants calling up the memory of their Alpine homes at their place of final rest. Alice loved to be outside, and she loved to go back to New Ulm, to "the farm", or to be out on the lake.

This particular monument made me smile, knowing this town of literature, of learning, of law, of analysis. Was it the dead man who had trouble letting go of this world, his work, his opinions? Was it family? An admirer? patron? pushy engraver? Talk about getting the last word! There are so many fascinating works of art here, languid goddesses and strange busts and eerie death masks and oddly/brilliantly judged abstractions, along with plenty of grandiose religious statuary.

I spent a peaceful and inspiring few hours here, strolling on the dappled paths and thinking of the shifting sands everywhere. Then I hopped back on the Steed and headed home. Riding up the queenly broad path along the canal, the main artery that leaves town to the south hummed with cars to my left as trains and trams crossed the bridges over my head. My way was no less busy, packed with bikes and joggers, dogs and inline skater, strolling lovers and immoveable packs of tourists. Every artery of the city was flowing with its life's blood, its people, and we were all on our way in and out of Vienna's heart.

dkz