Belgium

All Poems, Belgium, Trips and Places

Strange Morning

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It was a strange morning.

Waking up at 3:30 am.

Before the first ray of light.

No morning walk.

Rather, rushing to get ready.

Waiting for a pickup to the airport.

Zaventem in Brussels.

To board a plane for London.

Connection to Liberty Newark.

Bob thought he knew the drill.

Advised the driver, British Airlines, please.

But, the car stopped.

In a sea of other vehicles.

The driver told us to exit.

Drag the bags to the terminal.

The single terminal.

Divided into two concourses.

Where we found British Airways.

Once done, just time to hang out.

In long halls, on comfy seats.

Watch a sunrise through airport glass.

Preserve time as it retreats.

 

Lynn Benjamin

July 17, 2023

 

 

 

 

All Poems, Belgium, Humor, Trips and Places

Teenage Lament

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The apartment in Brussels fit the bill.

Except for one problem.

Why is the bathroom door glass? Asher lamented.

How am I supposed to use it?

Indeed, it was extraordinary.

About seven feet tall, heavy, no lock.

Transparent inside and out.

Especially when the light was on.

Otherwise, mirror-like.

Who would install a see-through door? I wondered.

Someone trying to be sophisticated?

Elegant? Fancy? Erotic?

I thought of bathroom doors I’ve encountered.

Mostly wooden ones with handles.

Painted white or left natural.

Sometimes, a slot door.

All plain.

Opening, closing, locking.

Fitting into frames, jambs.

Affording privacy to the user.

This one, more like an entrance to a hotel.

It gave the three of us a puzzle

to sort, to figure out.

Asher took his turns

when we slept or ran about.

 

Lynn Benjamin

July 17, 2023

 

 

All Poems, Art/Arts, Belgium, Family, Grandchildren, Museums, Trips and Places

Last Day and Evening in Brussels

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We dedicated the last day in Brussels to art.

The quirky, surreal paintings of René Magritte.

The old masters.

Hieronymus Bosch, Pieter Bruegel, Peter Paul Reubens.

Expressionists like James Ensor.

Impressionists like Alfred Sisley.

Contemporary painter and sculptor, Johan von Mullen.

In his exhibit For Love’s S(n)ake.

Collection of work before, during, after the Covid pandemic.

At the Royal Museum of Fine Arts.

We even swung into the nearby BELvue Museum.

A complete history of Belgium.

But, I have to say

though the art, a delight.

Nothing beat chatting

with Asher all night.

 

Lynn Benjamin

July 15, 2023

All Poems, Belgium, Farewell, Trips and Places

How Do You Get to Know a City?

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How do you get to know a city?

When you’ve been there less than a week?

Some people advise sitting in a café.

Soaking up the ambiance.

Others say take in the sites.

Walk the streets.

Try the cuisine.

Meet inhabitants.

Ask them how they view the city.

But, maybe it’s not possible.

To ever fully know a city.

Like it’s not possible to ever fully know a person.

For neither is static.

Both change, transform, grow.

Only history remains fixed.

And even history is recounted differently.

Depending on the source.

So, perhaps five days is enough.

To get a sense of Brussels.

Get familiar with certain paths.

From the square opposite the Unknown Soldier’s tomb.

To the Royal Park.

The monumental streets past embassies, EU buildings.

The dense area downtown.

Bus, metro, tram routes.

Mussels and frites.

With all the construction, building.

It will not be the same tomorrow.

Next week.

Next year.

So acquaintance may be enough

to leave Belgian mystique complete.

Mix of antiquity and new

leave recollections sweet.

 

Lynn Benjamin

July 15, 2023

 

 

All Poems, Belgium, Museums, Trips and Places

The Royal Museum of the Army and Military History

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Asher is a military history buff.

So, we had to visit to the military museum.

Where we spent four hours.

Could have stayed longer.

For exhibits are vast.

Medieval European weaponry.

Histories of World War I and II.

Aircraft from 1914 to 1970.

Tanks from WWI and the Cold War.

Russian treasures from before the Russian revolution.

Hats from Napoleon’s time forward.

And Mannekin-Pis in military attire.

Who is Mannekin-Pis?

Statue of a peeing boy.

A fountain made in 1619.

To provide drinks for the neighborhood.

Knighted by King Louis XV.

Now the symbol of Brussels.

Wearing different costumes.

For different occasions.

Stored in his own GardeRobe.

Sometimes, he’s hooked up to a keg.

To pee wine or beer.

Fashioned into chocolate candies.

Multicolored dolls.

Drawn on posters, postcards.

Planted in a museum.

For visitors to find, identify.

This museum’s intense.

Gun, canon, tank, sword.

Manneken-Pis, levity.

An icon adored.

 

Lynn Benjamin

July 15, 2023

All Poems, Belgium, Trips and Places

Little Surprises

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Little surprises pop up while traveling.

Spices to bring out flavors in the dish.

Baby swans flanked by their parents.

Swimming in the harbor in Amsterdam.

Poppies spotted in Waterloo.

Again, along tracks in Antwerp.

Nodding tributes to John McCrae’s In Flanders Fields.

Immense bicycle parking garages.

In Netherlands and Belgium.

Testament to joys of peddling.

Pigeons accepted by people.

Perching on outstretched arms.

Tulip fields in the countryside.

Even after spring season.

Grown to mow down, sell bulbs.

Blooming lily pads along canals in Delft.

Atop the greenest of green algae.

A mother duck nearby on a nest.

Just waiting.

Stumble stones on the sidewalk in Antwerp.

Reminders of Nazi occupation.

Jewish deportation.

Roses at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Brussels.

Without words telling us life goes on.

Lindens dropping seed pods in the Royal Park.

Just like they do in Elkins Park.

Geluck’s giant cat sculptures.

Wry commentaries on all of us.

Lots of hidden dramas

add zest to the blend.

Open all the senses.

Smell, taste, and attend.

 

Lynn Benjamin

July 15, 2023

 

 

All Poems, Belgium, Trips and Places

Ghent and Brugge

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Off to Ghent we went.

Metro, train, tram.

Right to the heart.

Under construction for summer fare.

Likely concert staging.

Or festival.

Around the bend from the Castle of the Dukes.

A quick chocolate stop at Neuhaus.

Then into the stone medieval castle.

Twelfth century court, defense, prison.

With a square wooden toilet in a WC.

Evacuation pipe strait to the canal beneath!

Up worn steps, down.

Views of red roof tops, cathedral.

Canals, typical Belgian houses.

Next, a tram, then train to Brugge.

A smaller city.

With lace and chocolate shops.

A town square, cathedral.

Where we tramped the streets.

Ate mussels au naturel.

The best since our last visit to Belgium.

Fifty years ago.

Herring salad.

The famous frites.

In an eatery off the main square.

If the day had been longer,

off to Ostende we’d go.

To stretch time in Belgium.

A beach not forego.

For Ostende’s close to Brugge

as Ghent to Brugge, not far.

But our lodging’s in Brussels.

To my idea, au revoir!

 

Lynn Benjamin

July 14, 2023

 

All Poems, Belgium, Museums, Trips and Places

The MAS Museum

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The port in Antwerp fascinates.

Point from which migrants left Europe for years.

Fleeing hardships, persecution.

The MAS is monumental.

Built from red Indian sandstones.

With over three thousand hands.

Symbols of the city of Antwerp.

The free waterways.

Waterways that connect Antwerp to the world.

The world to Antwerp.

The museum is by the harbor.

With undulating glass windows like waves.

It rises ten floors.

With a panorama of the city at the top.

Then permanent, temporary, provocative exhibitions.

One per floor, reached by escalator.

Multiple exhibits.

The pre-Colombian gold exhibit.

The home and what home means.

Cities and food.

Antwerp, the port, and its cargo.

The impact of World War II on Antwerp.

Every floor another discovery.

Another story.

Escalators going up.

Going down.

So, if you go to the MAS,

allow plenty of time.

Displays are exhaustive.

Sublime, the design.

 

Lynn Benjamin

July 14, 2023

 

All Poems, Art/Arts, Belgium, Trees, Trips and Places

Brussels Park aka The Royal Park

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It took us minutes to get to Brussels Park.

From our aparthotel.

The first evening in the city.

I can’t believe my grandmother played here, said Bob.

She used to tell me tales of the royal children out with their nanny.

We retraced her steps.

Numerous times.

Drawn back again and again.

To this neoclassical place of recreation.

Between Parliament and the Royal Palace.

Established from 1776 to 1783.

By architect Guimard and landscape designer Zinner.

With its mythological Greco-Roman statues.

Bandstand.

Royal Theater in the Park.

Dance bar.

Picnic tables.

Narrow lawns.

Fountains.

Canopies of trees.

Lime, linden, beech.

Chestnut, maple, ash.

And, to our surprise, a visiting sculpture exhibit.

Le Chat, by Philippe Geluck.

Twenty enormous bronze statues.

Each a giant fat cat depicting life’s follies.

Making you laugh and marvel.

How we wished Bubby Sunny

could accompany us to see

Geluck’s display of the cat

revealing human absurdity!

 

Lynn Benjamin

July 14, 2023

    

 

All Poems, Belgium, Stories, Trips and Places

Antwerp

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Have you ever gone somewhere?

Somewhere you didn’t know?

Looking for traces?

Traces of a loved one?

Whose background you knew only through stories?

Passed down through generations?

The trip to Antwerp was such a place.

Bob’s grandmother, Sonia, departed from its port to the United States.

Three times.

Traveling with her family from Kiev to Antwerp.

To the Red Star Shipping Company.

To pile into steerage.

But upon arrival, turned away.

For Tracoma, an eye infection.

Sent back to Europe alone at fourteen.

Placed by the Hebrew Immigration Society into an orphanage.

In Brussels where she learned French.

Her parents saving to pay her passage again.

But, she was rejected a second time.

Till at last, they booked a crossing on a private boat.

To Philadelphia from Antwerp.

Where the Red Star Line Museum is housed.

Where they chronicle emigration.

From antiquity to the present.

Where Sonia’s story is retold.

By many in many iterations.

We traveled far to Antwerp.

To seek Bubby Sunny at the port.

Hear her tell her story.

Wave, embrace, give her our support.

We found her there in spirit.

A child abandoned twice.

To her we owe a priceless debt

for her selfless sacrifice.

 

Lynn Benjamin

July 13, 2023