Belgrade

Where have I been all this time,
since I first stood on these cobbles
nestled in the elbow of great rivers?

Musicians rove and spill country tunes
up into the cool night air
and voices raise in drunken song.

We celebrate a summer promised,
good to come flowing to us
on the waters, meandering under the fort.

**

Moonlight pools on the calm and protected oasis. The brutal block building stands as a bulwark against the musical human chaos of the street beyond. I lean against the brick wall of the courtyard, beer on the table, and gear up, get ready to launch out from the peace into the wild world out there.

**
An unseasonably golden sun hangs over the confluence of the two rivers, casting bugs and birds in a glow of amber. Tennis balls thwump on clay.

**

Gunshots rang out one day inside this school,
(renewed echoes of the bombs that fell - 1862, 1914, 1941, 1944, 1999) killing nine children and one man. How many more times can a city rebuild itself without losing its heart?

**
Lightning crackles from the atop the hulking coil, illuminating the lamp-sticks held aloft in electric ceremony. Can you picture them, worshippers of the great mechanical thunder, huddled around their snapping copper altar?

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