Just two degrees separating today’s
high and low here in Nowogard, too warm
for soft mist morphing to snow. Jadwiga
(named for the feminist miner, her arm
broken, then forehead blown off for striking
in the Seventeenth Century) giggles
as I study Hotel Oskar’s lime-green
wall, quip I hunger for pie. She wiggles
her index, chides how I shouldn’t make fun.
We pause at the granite monument: four
soldiers, straight and pointed as missiles, one
capped more like a bishop. Right after our
lake walk, we’ll mazurka, sip Pompanskis,
then flirt over bigos and pierogi.
Roger Armbrust
February 24, 2008
