Swallows swirl in and out of the tower of a ruined castle overhung with gray storm clouds high on the hillside. Mauve and green patches of a quilted vineyard roll up and down the hill. The sandstone buildings in the village in the valley prevent the hillside from sliding into the pale blue Main in the foreground. The spire of the Romanesque church soars back up toward the castle.	Almost at the edge of the scene, a steamboat churning westward toward the invisible Rhine billows black smoke into the evening air. Standing like uneasy emigrants, hands clasped on the railing, passengers peer back at the fading village. On this side of the river, darkness begins to fall like fine rain upon an abandoned foot path.

 
from Blue-Eyed Grass: Poems of Germany.
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Copyright Time Being Press, reprinted with permission
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