Saturday, January 30, 2010

The Munich I Want to Visit

I am going to go into a bookstore in Munich in March.

I am going to go to the poetry section.

I am going to find an edition of Rilke.

I will probably look at all the neighboring R shelves and discover on the spines of books the names of German poets about whom I know nothing.

I will open some of those books and try to read a line or more with my first-year German.

I will likely find the edition of some unfamiliar poet and decide to buy it. I will have understood just enough of the words and the binding will be appealingly compact and the pages strangely beautiful with all the open space around and between the lines of verse.

I will take the books I want to the cashier and offer the credit card with which I have purchased books in Paris and Venice in recent years.

Five minutes later I will walk out onto the Munich street with a bag in hand.

No other time with those books will likely do as much to convince me of the value of the days I am planning in Munich as that half hour in the bookstore.

Wherever it is.

Whatever street.

Near whatever Munich church I will probably then wend my way.



Photo uploaded from Flickr member soozika.

5 comments:

Ur-spo said...

German books are funny that their spine writing is the other way around - you have to turn your head to the left not the right to read the spines.

John said...

I'll be ready because French titles appear the same direction. It may take a little time to get into practice tilting my head that way, but I'm game.

Kimberly said...

AUGH! I love this... when just thinking about it is pleasing...and then there´s the knowing it will happen, too! Yes, Rilke is a must. Nothing like slipping a volume into the bag and heading out...
And what a fabulous image you used at the end.

Anonymous said...

Best things are those that haven't happened yet.

John said...

Possibilities are grand, aren't they?