DAYBREAK IN COLOGNE

The tiny bedroom transforms

Dawn

Cotton candy swirl

Bathes the white stucco walls across the street

Clouds of alabaster

Glowing pinks and blues

I rejoice

From our warm nest

Behind the sheer white curtains

Another beautiful day begins

Perfection

Vivid precision

Ceremony

Cars begin their daily task

Threading the narrow crowded streets of cobblestone

European style

Anxious hands

Banging horns like a chess match

Birds go about their business

Hungry

They roost on eaves of terracotta

Eyeing elms and spruce vantage points

Ame’dee’ stirs

Delighted to join the procession

My steaming coffee mug

Brings life to my aging bones

The air is brisk

Cold and refreshing

Thick

Hanging low like lake effect vapor

Russian lullaby

Words I cannot understand

But feel their tender meaning

Holiday

Sensory assault

In appealing variety

I drink it all in

And smile

© Bill Grimes Jr. 2005