naive – Energy and Time

Croatia days 30-31: Zagreb

September 18th: Mostly a rest day. For lunch, we headed for a Curry Bowl restaurant only to find that it had apparently been abandoned years ago and its patio overgrown. (Online photos of the place showed tables where those bushes are now.)

So we went to a nearby sushi restaurant instead. The fish was very fresh.

Carol chose 3 rolls. Probably a better deal.

September 19th: Breakfast at the bakery by the bus station. I went (uncharacteristically) for pizza while Carol grabbed a slice of cheese pie.

Then we took an Uber up to the Gornji Grad (“Upper Town”) section of old Zagreb. And I do mean “up”.

It’s higher than the rooftops of most of the rest of the city, and has great views.

It’s such a steep drop that there’s a cog railway spanning it.

We wanted to see the Museum Of Naive Art, but it was closed. So we spent quite a while in the Museum Of Broken Relationships.

Then we just cruised around the neighborhood for a bit.

I thought I saw a tiny hummingbird in a flower bed, and spent several minutes trying to catch a photo of it. This blurry image is about the best I could do. But I now think that it was probably a hummingbird hawk-moth (Macroglossum stellatarum).

For lunch, we found where the Curry Bowl restaurant had moved to.

Carol had Hot Butter Calamari and I had the Black Pork Curry.

Sonnets To Orpheus II, 27

Gibt es wirklich die Zeit, die zerstörende?
Wann, auf dem ruhenden Berg, zerbricht sie die Burg?
Dieses Herz, das unendlich den Göttern gehörende,
wann vergewaltigts der Demiurg?

Sind wir wirklich so ängstlich Zerbrechliche,
wie das Schicksal uns wahrmachen will?
Ist die Kindheit, die tiefe, versprechliche,
in den Wurzeln - später - still?

Ach, das Gespenst des Vergänglichen,
durch den arglos Empfänglichen
geht es, als wär es ein Rauch.

Als die, die wir sind, als die Treibenden,
gelten wir doch bei bleibenden
Kräften als göttlicher Brauch.

Does Time really exist, the Destroyer?
When does it crush the castle on the summit?
This heart, belonging to the gods forever:
when does the Demiurge rape and ruin it?

Are we really such fearfully fragile things
as fate keeps telling us every day?
Does childhood, deep, full of promisings,
later - in the roots - have nothing to say?

Ah, the specter of the ephemeral
wafts through the naive susceptible
like the puff of smoke it is.

As that which we are, as the drivers,
we're still regarded by lasting powers
as divine necessities.