Intercontinental intermezzo: LOCALLY UNDER LINDEN

Locally under linden
Rothko, Rothko,
How do you touch me so deeply,
So briefly, or at least,
With so little?
How do you draw me
To a world so free from care,
Free from the position
To share my judgment with neighbors,
With figures around me?
You pull me in,
Leave me alone at the same time.
You make me understand
How evil must have felt about you
For a second, or two.
I fall back into reality
Confused, diffused,
Unattached from the world
I thought I knew.
I see fields of dark blue and orange,
But uncertainly so.
I examine your strokes
That I keenly let go.
I look for figures or reason
But fail miserably,
And my heart beats louder and louder.
The crowd around me
Fades more and more,
As their gasping a superficial sound.
The temporary location
Of merely one of your marvelous examples,
Perfectly timed
Under the white bass wood of Berlin –
A perfectly belated sin.
And I thought I didn’t care for history.
But here I am, and so is your No. 18.