Luminberg

All of their stories began as thus —

“It was 1942, and the Viennese and the

Serbs were each handed a box of

territory on the coast — a bit like Trieste.”

There was an old market square,

with hundreds of grocers,

all peddling their half-rotten onion skins.

There were dignitaries, and Stalinists,

but more than anything, this place was

a stronghold of learning and exchange.

Would you date anybody from Luminberg?

This was a trilingual people.

They spoke in tongues, whilst waiting for their

ships to dock, a bit like Marseilles,

in the fog of the dawn of human deception.

Their antics were few;

their crazes, many.

They struggled with the Lord’s Prayer,

as much as you and I.

If you met a Luminberger

somewhere down South,

like in Senegal, or out East,

like in Shanghai —

you would never speak directly;

it would always be,

through the use of an interpreter.

Luminberg, Luminberg.

Give me a bit of the old country;

before we were this innocent.

Luminberg, Luminberg.

You only wanted to be free.

Luminberg, my dearest sorrow;

love me, hold me:

there is no tomorrow.

Luminberg, Luminberg.

Let me be, a wedding for Thee.

*

From "Buddha's Broken Fingernail," by Daniel Viragh.