Domestic Bliss and Other Illusions

In southern lands,
As it turns out,
The nights are truly
Dark, without doubt.
Perhaps it’s why
You’ll now adore
Majestic Krasnodar
And Sochi’s shore.
No longer aching
To up and leave
For Cyprus beaches
Or Portugal’s weave –
Right after touching down
From Germany’s ground.

You’ll start to see
The good at home –
Even the things
That’s never known.
You’ll reminisce
In detail fine –
Even the things
That never were, in time.
And who can tell –
Recalling Spain,
Its mind-spun spell –
You’ll walk the lane
Of Sochi’s Arboretum trees
And find that carnivorous plant’s at ease,
Devouring bugs so trustingly –
Nothing more dear will ever be.

In your strange mind,
Shifted and new,
Childhood memories
Will spring to view,
Growing in geometric streams,
Echoes of Soviet-Russian dreams.
And foreign chats of recent days
Will haunt you in peculiar ways –
Along with traces, faint yet sweet,
Of that old cologne, “Taking Flight,”
Upon the summer heat.

2020