Summer in the CityLooking for Cool Shadein the Gardens of Augarten Palace

The Baroque Façade
of the Augarten Palace
The chestnut tree-lined road, the palace with
the Viennese Porcelain Manufactury
all are well and good,
but not what you are lusting after
on a hot early summer's day?

You take one last peak over the garden wall,
back into the city,
but your senses are already being transported
back to the Late Miocene,
your brain busy deciphering the song
of the honey bees working the sage flowers.

Looking at the abundance of flowers around here,
you begin to understand why honey bees
refused to cross the Rocky Mountains
on their own!

With so much bounty right at home,
I too, like the bees,
would have to be carried west by ship
- slaves to a honey craving New World -
preceding the Governator to California
by one hundred and fifty years!

One more wall
to find the gate leading us
into the gardens,

where we can wave good-bye
to the world outside

for a few precious moments,
our feet hurrying along
under the protective cover
of row upon row of trees

to where shady respite
is offered
not only to bicycles,

but to men
as well!

Wo/men too!

A park bench
invites to sit and
take off your shoes,
open the paper
and read about what you
do not miss,
here, in paradise!

Lass die Seele baumeln!
Take a break from life!

For once, pretend
to be the world's
greatest sluggard,

take being a loafer
to the heights of art
where it deserves to be!

Let your mind
do the wandering,

into
sun-stroked
green infinity!

Photographed by Merisi during lunch hour
around Palais Augarten on Wednesday, May 20, 2009.
First published May 2009
Images and Text © Merisi