Returning to the Strudlhof StepsVienna in Autumn

Since I moved here,
I have walked up and down
these steps many times,


and each time it is as if
I were stepping back to a period
long before I was born,


but that feels present
all the same.


Photographed 11 November 2014
Images and Text © by Merisi



On the Strudlhof Steps in Vienna

When the leaves upon the steps are lying
from the old stairs is heard an autumn sighing
of all that's gone across them in the past
A moon in which a couple, holding fast,
embraces, lightweight shoes and heavy footfall
the mossed urn in the middle, by the wall,
outlasts the year between the wars and dying.

So much is past and gone, to our dismay,
And beauty shows the frailest power to stay.

Heimito von Doderer, "The Strudlhof Steps"
tranlated by Vincent Kling