WanderLost

Walk around Old Town Prague. Walk around Prague, through the shadows of the tall buildings, the fancy buildings of color, brick and stone. Walk through the shadows cast by stone angels, smiling cherubs. Hear the Vltava river flowing by. See the seagulls rise and fall above it, their wings flashing in the light like sparkling confetti. Tourists walking by in expensive coats, snapping pictures. Watch them march across the bridge, endless procession of hands, feet, scarves, wallets. Baby strollers. Small poodle dogs on leashes. The crunch of sandy grit underfoot, the clatter of cobblestone. Sunlight glancing off surfaces into eyes. Grafitti on the park benches. Signs advertising ‘Souvenirs from Prague’ as though Prague were something you could buy and put in your pocket. Imagine the disappointment when, returning home, you unwrap it and find it’s just a thing, like all other things, and can’t capture the dark spires or sculpted facades or the motor of the boats going by, the call of the captains to the tourists, the flapping of 30 pigeons’ wings, the sound of a coin falling to the pavement. Prague at night is a lighted city. Small alleys turn into squares. Lampposts and sometimes neon signs. It’s like no matter where you are, or when, the city knows you’re looking at it.

It’s 12:20 of a Friday afternoon and I am at the train station in Prague waiting in line to buy my ticket to Dresden. My three months of allowed tourism is up tomorrow, so I’m heading over the border and back to get my passport stamped so I can walk the streets without fear of deportation. The train I want leaves in ten minutes but the line isn’t moving, and I’m getting antsy. The lady at the front of the line is talking and talking in Czech to the woman behind the glass, apparently asking about every train ever scheduled to leave Prague in the history of trains, and the rest of us behind her tap our feet and roll our eyes at the clock, its hands marching relentlessly onwards.
Finally I switch to another line and buy my ticket just in time, clutching it in my hands and walking briskly through the station. I make it up the stairs and onto the platform and I have a flashback to my last European train trip, how we waited on the platforms in the snowy cold of Germany and Switzerland, packs on our backs, train schedules in our hands. It’s not snowing now and I get on the train and have five glorious minutes before it leaves the station.
The city of Prague rolls gently past my window, then outer Prague, and then suddenly it’s all trees and bushes and little Czech towns. The houses are mostly small, some even one-room tiny in a row on the hillside. Most are white or cream colored with that Praguian style red tile roof, although occasional walls of bright green or orange break the monotony. Stone and brick show through the cracked and peeling whitewash. Muddy yards with patches of soggy grass. Sad yellow dog lying on a doorstep. Black chickens beside a plastic swimming pool. Smoke rising from the chimney. Each town has its own small stone church— the wide arch, single spire, rows of narrow windows.
The train follows the river the whole way, almost along the same level. Petite houses nestle between the river and the rocky sides of the rising hills. Farther on, the hills get rockier and more dramatic, yet still the little colored houses clustering in the cracks and folds.
We finally leave the river with its toy-like houses and enter the city. Layers upon layers of buildings, railroad tracks, poles, wires. Leaving the train station, I see an interesting-looking dome in the near distance and head towards it. On the way I run a gauntlet of outlet shops, growing bigger and bigger, straining the flow of humanity from the train station— retaining the money and letting the people trickle out at the end, wide-eyed and dazed, arms filled with shopping bags.
The first dome is a church, and next to it an impressive government building. More spires loom in the distance and I wend my way towards them, bypassing strange landmarks such as a statue of a man holding grapes while hugging a mule, and a fountain depicting a young man attempting to pick up several alarmed-looking geese.
Crossing the road, I come to another square. At the end of it is the Frauenkirche, a church completely bombed to rubble during the war. It has since been rebuilt. Its facade is a light tan color, speckled with darker bricks— originals dug from the ruins and painstakingly put back in their original places. A nearby construction crane looms in the background. The square is quiet, nearly empty. A woman in a red coat stands with her back to me, watching one man working alone, placing cobblestones. The clink clink of his efforts echo across the square.
Inside the church is beautiful, overwhelmingly white and pure. The silver pipes of the organ gleam, surrounded by twisting white and gold designs. On one side, rows of candles flicker, and tourists pour in a steady stream to light more. I join them, then walk back out into the square.
Continuing onward, I walk up some stairs and am suddenly confronted by the waterfront. Amazing old buildings stretch along the waterfront behind me. Nearby is the bridge, and above it, a large swarm of black birds. Like a whirlwind of black leaves they rise, whirl and dive together, twisting gracefully as though every move has been consciously choreographed. Fascinating. Eerie. The ghosts of Dresden above the grave of bombed-out ruins now rebuilt. Doesn’t matter that there are cranes in the sky; memory goes deep.
I walk along the waterfront, across the bridge and back again, taking photos. The sky is overcast above me, steel gray, and the birds still glide in it, giving an occasional caw. A man sits in a tunnel archway playing the accordion— not a lively tune, but hopeful. I toss some money in his case because his song matches my mood and keep on walking, soaking up the dark grandeur of the stone buildings around me.
At last it’s time to catch my train, and the procession of buildings and sights reverses as I turn my feet back towards the station. It’s getting dark, with shadows starting to stretch across the squares. Then I’m sitting in the train, watching Dresden slowly trickle by my window, the buildings getting shorter and scarcer, until we are alongside the river once again. It quickly grows too dark to see and I hurtle along in the night towards the bright city of Prague, yet the dark towers of Dresden rear up in my mind’s eye, and I can almost hear the whisper of wings and a faint caw as a slight chill of memory runs down my spine.

Poem: Frauenkirche

The church of Dresden rises again
against the cloudy sky,
crossed by a construction crane.
A woman in a red coat
stands with her back to me.
Clink clink echoes across the empty square,
the sound of one man working.