GRASSALKOVICH PARK, BRATISLAVA

Yesterday was New Year’s Eve and the fountain

was drained to prevent too much merriment.

So the bronze, nude young ladies disport themselves

in dry, cold air. The equestrian statue

of Maria Theresa, mother

of sixteen, and the last of the Holy

Roman Empresses appears unamused,

though whether by the municipality’s

actions or the girls’ appears unclear.

Last month’s heavy snow remains in small,

sheltered drifts behind occasional trees.

What was an Hungarian aristocrat’s

formal palace garden in the French style

has become – by dint of many wars

and a few revolutions – a public park,

where my granddaughter, descendant of Celts,

Jews and Vikings, a competitor, sprints

on the white, gravel paths.