Visit To Vienna

The four old men lounging in plaid flannel outside the Shell station warily eye the stranger ambling along Chain Bridge Road On the porch of a shop that sells antiques made last Wednesday a small grey silk scarf woman stares, then looks away Bird calls and the hum of traffic crossing Nutley Street are the stranger's mantra A redwood-paneled motel signals "vacancy" to travelers while carloads of Americans rush toward I-66 reposeful midday townhouses march toward the highway in cardboard anonymity; stories of rage & pain slumber beneath faux-birchwood shingles; they'll never reach the ears of the stranger on Chain Bridge Road He strolls along through dreams of another Vienna of ancient, stately opera houses and cathedrals of gray stone harvested from an age before the dawn of man He treks across memories of another Vienna: signs saying "white" & "colored" on schools & water fountains, eyes that say "unwelcome" over smiling lips; proud grown men addressed only as "boy" when they look like the stranger The four old men outside the Shell station turn their eyes away from the stranger to other concerns... perhaps to their own dreams and memories And left alone in reveries of foreign times and places, the stranger saunters onward, heading toward evening sun on Chain Bridge Road Written March 28th, 2002 © on Mar 28 2002 08:19 AM PST   10 • 0