The faded wallpaper
was covered in paintings
from ceiling to floor,
reflecting a lifetime
of beauty and heartache
and pleasure and toil.
She stares at the empty
white canvas, remembering
what had been before.
She’ll not be forgotten.
Her future is sealed in
acrylic and oil.
The remainder of our time in Germany today did not disappoint. A cruise along the Rhein river was the first order of business, and, as a resident of the US, I was blown away by the medieval castles, built in the 12th century and still standing. There's hardly anything that old in my world, and nothing that well preserved for so long. I've learned a little German, but I'm still embarrassed to try to speak it to any actual citizens who know what they're doing. Luckily they're better educated than a rube such as I, and are able to speak English well. Perhaps here in Lucerne I'll still have a chance to practice if I can be brave.
We'll be staying put in Switzerland for a couple of days, which should allow some much needed rest and reorganization. I'll have more time free tomorrow, but they started our sightseeing as soon as we came to town with the lion monument. It is an imposing carving in a cliff face, created in the early 1820's by Bertel Thorvaldsen and Lukas Ahorn, in memory of Swiss guards who fell during the French Revolution. The subject is a dying lion, and the artists captured this so perfectly that it is absolutely heartbreaking, especially in context. I had difficulty holding back tears, but managed not to interrupt the selfie taking and general levity around me. Not everyone gets so choked up over a piece of rock that was never really a lion anyway. I'm not sure that my photo really did him justice, and I might have to try again tomorrow. It's a rare gift, even more so in our own time, to create a work of art that brings any raw material to life in such a poignant way.
