.......................................................................

i tasted the ocean

i tasted the ocean

days after floyd

anticipating

saltiness

that bit the tongue --

white-capped life fluid,

balancing ships

anchored offshore,

distant lights in the night

riding out the storm,

the always-black-clouds

finally disappeared,

blown out over

the salty sea.

..................................................................

ALLEGRO

This music I hovered

over

when I was sixteen

comes again now

as though the

years

had been erased,

or had no meaning;

this symphony is today

the same.

These ears

pick

the sounds

in what different manner now?

And the eyes

that are

baffled by the intertwining plants

see the winds

similarly.

This Sunday is years old.

I find myself in the sun

with the paper

and hours of any time.

The circle

is at times perfect,

and the clean line

of a brilliant edge

unknowingly

continues

eternal

to the chords

of familiar music,

to the patterns

of beginning and end.

...................................................................

AND SO IT IS

Apples fall

from the untended

tree

that has been

on its own

against

bugs and worms

for years.

The bees

get the apples,

the birds

get the apples,

the weeds

grow high

with heavy rains:

they are over

my head;

they were

before me

and they

will be

long afterwards,

requiring

the strongest

of man's

poisons

to be affected.

Insects

from the weeds

bite

at the skin,

the sky is

winter dark

in August

again.

The thunder

crashes,

an apple

falls,

a far off

bird

in the trees

calls.

..................................................................

WINTER BLOSSOMS

The corn plant flowers,

smelling of magnolias;

days later its spikes

dwindle

to dusty crimson flakes,

the perfume

broken through the yard --

vanished.

After six years, flowers,

drawing insects still

after they've withered,

their December blooming

a joke that might have been missed

except for the fragrance

of winter blossoms.

......................................................................

OF TIME AND THE RIVERS

VLTAVA AND SALZACH

Long after

we are all gone,

the rivers flow --

music from

snows melting,

fairy lands

as when we were all

children --

brown, not

green,

with the force

of nature.

(NOTE: THE FINAL POEM WAS WRITTEN IN SALZBURG, AUSTRIA, IN MAY, 1999,

AND SERVES AS THE CONCLUSION OF

"PARIS, PRAGUE AND SALZBURG: A REMEMBRANCE,"

WRITTEN IN THOSE CITIES BY THE WRITER ON A LAPTOP COMPUTER,

AND PUBLISHED ON THE AUTHOR'S WRITING WEBSITE,

ACCESSIBLE VIA WWW.YAHOO.COM, ENTER PAUL HEIDELBERG IN SEARCH.)