Entropy in Wiesbaden
You peeped out over the Roman wall
into the German street
battered by the slant, stubborn rain.
What you saw was Europe worn away,
its crowded, fractal script.
Lots of money, well-cut clothes,
prim dwellings, curt gestures,
ghastly food - and, finally Goethe
in his memorious, courtier mode,
patriarch, santo doctus, mode
of the all-enlightened poet.
Nothing to tell on your return
except for the now constant,
final rain. A breath of the Holy Spirit
entered the mouth of the passing moment -
but you, present, more diligent
with detail than the Middle Ages
of the Black Forest,
bore witness to the puritan sermon
and the post-industrial dust,
the overbearing views of
some academic, the counsel
of an editor astray
in Frankfurt. Entropy
engulfed Wiesbaden
while over and over you were reborn
against the blaze of time.