Jordaan

Jordaan

I found myself  on a  bridge over  the Prinsengracht canal
in the disconnected calm  of three joints  from a coffee bar
and the cool predawn air. The click of Rembrandt’s footsteps
still echo down the cobbles at this hour--  Once, long ago,
I dreamt of the scene,  this moment;  fog  tickling  across
the warm canal water. I thought back to the person I was
when that dream was formed and I realized that I missed him.
He was young and idealistic, so unafraid, with a swagger
that  could  only  come  from  hubris  and  ignorance.

The damp morning air  sat on the shoulders  of my  jacket
and I smiled as I watched  a young  Dutch couple  fend  off
the chilly dark, oblivious to the painter and me as we took it all in.
The distance between that boy and the man that I would become
seems so much greater than the twenty five years it took to travel.
That  boy’s  dreams  have  turned  into  my  sad  reminiscence,
a longing for that time before disbelief and defeat; the un-jaded
days of wonder lost along the way. I wanted to see Amsterdam
before I died; I realize now that it’s too late.

SMG