A COUNTRY

by Lee Stern

There is a country I am going to that is not the old country.
But it is a country of different hats and different methods.
Older people who have been there say that it’s a place of expectations.
I’m not going to rave about it.
But I will say that people who have been there
after they suddenly return, seem astonished to actually be back.
And to get to this country, as you might have imagined,
you need a ticket and a bottle of sweet smelling liquid.
Having two tickets is even better.
Although if you show up with three of them,
all of the books you’ve ever read will turn their pages for you
and you’ll be astonished that you were never able to do it yourself.
For this is a country you might have read about.
You might have seen the sentences placed on the ground
nearer to the edge of a waterfall than you might have expected.
And praying for it, you might have seen its dogs
placed in a line that, though it couldn’t be reconnoitered,
might have comforted the magicians it owned.
And the suitors who were begging to go free.