STRANGER

The author of a recent book on Covent Garden  thinks

You are a beggar but he has not looked closely

You're cranky, not poor, and you're wearing a shtreiml

A Jew -- a hasid perhaps, or else a Litvak,

Has wandered into Louis Phillipe Boitard's drawing

Of Holbein's Gateway and Jones' Banqueting House.

You've been there, leaning awkwardly against a fence,

Since 1742. Perhaps you hoped my father might see you

And address you in old-fashioned Hebrew, or my mother

Gently ask "Landtsman, vos brengt ir do?" But

There is only me now nor have I the words

To ask what road took you here and why

You’ve put your back to the the Banqueting House,

Your head turned  so sharply from the Gateway.