May 15th, 2010

The other day I was out for a walk, and I saw something that made me a little sad, even though it was inevitable.  A new building was going up on a lot that has been vacant since I moved to Prague, back in 1998.  As I say, it was inevitable.  The lot is in a prime location, at the corner of Dlouha and that little cul-de-sac that ends behind Kotva.  The only surprising thing is that it wasn’t developed years ago.

There’s an Italian restaurant across the street, where I took my wife on our very first date, but that’s not the image that I have in mind when I think of that vacant lot.  About a year or so before I met my wife, there was a little incident, nothing of any importance at all, that took place there, as I sat and watched from the restaurant across the street.  And now it will be erased from the landscape of the city.  So I wrote this sonnet:

This morning I walked past a vacant lot

In the city center there are changes

It was bound to happen, it’s not so strange

But soon, there’ll be a building on that spot

There’s a restaurant right across the street

Where myself and a young lady that I knew

Used to drink a glass of wine or two

And one fine day, we had a window seat

We saw two lovers (people who we knew)

Oblivious to all the world outside

We watched them, you could even say we spied

Curious to see what they would do

It was early spring or late in fall

The snow was gently falling as they danced

It was a tender scene of sweet romance

At least, that is the way that I recall

Changes come, we leave the past behind

But still it is imprinted on our minds