Jordaan

 

Jordaan

I was standing 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

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dVerse Poets Pub