Jake's Flea Market

once upon a dawn i wandered out of wittenberg

it was windless   the early autumn morning
nothing blew and nothing was blown

the sun still silvered the night’s dew on the sod

i waited for the watchman to swing open the gate

the road there is narrow as a cart

the road that ends at schonburg’s manorhouse
it passes through a peasant village in a forest

that was my destination

it was a saturday i’d strolled
that far to preach there on the sunday

the village was forsaken   abandoned

its inhabitants had gone 
all into the forest to gather wood and to fell trees

none remained

i became a breath in the flesh

with no wind that motivated me forward
nor backward   nor to either side

with no wind that moved me i stood
motionless on the grassy crown of the lane

and the road became the shaft drilled
through the wood of the instrument the flute 
player’s hand moves away from his mouth
away from his lips in market square