Wong May

Like all great rivers The Elbe is familiar at first sight. The barges spic & span as the front parlors Of model homes in Saxony — The steam paddle-wheelers & other vessels, No less impeccable — all run With a near soporific efficiency. You lean out & the land starts up: The parcels of pastures & castles Bearing with them trees & cows & cattle-grids the crowned heads of daisies Little knots of   human habitations, Cigarette factory & garrisons Floodplains, sheet pilings Run All run, As if   by an engine, Some cement breaker from under the river torn turfs all Bob up & down, Brown like bears in bear gardens The cupolas, cavaliers Their ruinous sandstone reflections alongside. Whether this is the famous effect Of   the Balcony of   Europe Cork coasters chasing gilt coronets Maps loosely adrift on a map So many teacups clicking, Large balconies colliding Breaking up into smaller ones Valley & vineyards Mines, bridges, sugar-beet fields, villas, Museum corridors A Procession of   Princes Chimera of   Chinese porcelain palaces Cargoes of   homeland & meadows, Other Municipalities, the beer & beer mats, Coal, forestry, History atop Geography atop History Flags roll unroll — coalesce Black — red — yellow Yellow Black Red Runs White Sunk trains with passengers Trains sunk April ’45 Bergen-Belsen Run   Elbe   Run I pulled away. I have come this day to the bank of the Elbe To write a few postcards In a tearoom. On the steps up From street level to the Old Albertinum Museum some way from the tearoom A man too is minding his business On his lap a glass case For keyboard 2 rows of colored sand in test tubes Raspberry /burnt sienna /turquoise /Prussian blue /lavender /ochre Or neutral — just sand. Into a beer bottle he tips a little color & before you know Our man has tossed one up in the air like a baby & caught it roundly by the heels too, Le voilà, not one grain escapes It is shockproof, waterproof, A world like a Swiss watch, & time-proof — You count three camels It looks like 4, — any number could have been packed in the bottle Which, when turned slowly in the palm An orderly procession, : Camels against a horizon of   low sun An irradiated sky, Palm tree, undulating dunes A strata of deep watermelon subsiding to honey halva The silhouette of a tent, hint of A sandstorm in the air. Grit under eyelids & should you prefer From the array of   bottles you could take home one with A full sun, an Egyptian sun-disk & you have his word, — no fear, each hermetically sealed, Will travel. As if   to say not all the grains Are sand, our man also works With rice. He’s a jeweler. He will encrypt On a grain of rice a word, Enclosed in a colored phial of water again hermetically For all time Like the camels. A jewel, he said, The word a ruby, an emerald Of   water Should you forget, here his English broke off But you understand Yes, there is closure. As I watched, a lady at my elbow Like one at a séance, asked For the name “Christine,” her grand daughter, she said. & he, our scribe, answered he was from Iran, — not that anyone inquired. Iranian, then — Hence the camels Though here in Dresden He had looked Mexican A second before. I looked again & saw that he could be from anywhere, It depends on where you stand. This man has for good or ill the face of the world, Which he bears sadly With some mirth. I pulled away. Another moment I would have To come up with a name, a word, Another world. I was happy with my purchase of camels On the Elbe. Back home it holds Dresden & the Elbe for me in a bottle. It runs for so long as anyone would care to look, Not a drop more. I would have liked to write a card to the bottler Addressing sands sands of the world thereof My migrant, errant friend I wish you all the grains whatever you had set out for, & always Sands enough to take you, just where you stand Waiting for your No. 28 sunsets, No. 20, The watermelon sunrise & no end of camels.