"The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page" Saint Augustine
my cousin is a Polka
a Polish woman
in her kitchen in a village outside Krakow
she tells me stories
of the ancient city of Polish kings
where they built a guildhall
and the old ones of our blood
worked their carpentry
all day long the air was warm
and a storm of girls
with wide faces and Tatar eyes
was gathering
inside the Sukiennice
a sound of hammers
the smell of Carpathian wood
at evening
the pounding stopped
men would swim in the river
and there was bigos and vodka
under the trees' fleshy summer leaves
Gorale sang their strange wild songs
while their women bathed in the dark
No one swims in the gray Visla now
but a new wind rises over Poland
and sometimes - Grazyna says-
the Visla flickers with lights
like fires under trees
and makes a sound like women splashing
photos by john behringer copyright 2009
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