Hoping for Rain

Ich mag den Regen - I like the Rain 42 x 56 cm mixed media painting by Karin Goeppert

SAY WHAT YOU LIKE

Couldn’t care less about the Duke of Aragon’s

barbed scepter. But you do like the crumbling   

bits of old barns, or the stone cold cellar of an abbey,   

moldy bottles of a local vintage stored there  

for decades, undrinkable, the grapes in these parts   

turning sour well before middle-age sets in. At the agri-  

cultural festival there’s talk of manure and goose liver,

the famous scene in “Madame Bovary”

in which Madame B. is romanced 

by Rudolfo while outside a politician    

gives a speech that, with Bach-like precision,  

mirrors a lover’s empty words. I’m getting tired, maybe 

we should lie down for a while. Lunch was heavy

going and the wine strong. Children are running

races through the barley and rye. Say what you like,

some day they too will have to rest. People say

that a Greco or a Goya is stashed away in a back chamber

of the ducal palace, but no one has the energy to look for it. 

Julia Fischer plays various Bach pieces