back from Denmark

and, necessarily, Germany--so we could frame the trip with Wittenburg and Elsinore. Other points between filled in a memorable vacation: Copenhagen a wonderful city of architecture and ideas, fjords flat and swimable, pace of life relaxed (if pricey). Our highlight, as Mom guessed, was Hamlet's castle, especially as the play went on around us, in intervals. Hamlet began by serenading Ophelia, happy from her balcony until Polonius elbowed her back to her chamber. Yorick juggled and did handstands and then--to my utter astonishment--assumed the role of Horatio for the rest of the scenes, combining clownishness and faithful reason. Here is a poem and some photos:

                  fooled

So, Yorick has a son.

I’ve seen or read this play

a hundred times or so,

and never fathomed

such a son, a jester for

the current court of Elsinore.

I brought my family here,

Kronborg castle, Helsingør,

where Shakespeare

also holidayed, perhaps

before his own son,

Hamnet, passed away.

What greeted us, in motley,

was ‘Horatio’—faithful

to the core; he led us

down a dungeoned path

where Hamlet, in our midst,

would meet his father’s ghost.

The day and play went on,

Horatio as Yorick, miching

with Polonius, Ophelia,

tourists from Japan, my wife

and kids, my mind, the King,

and seagulls swirling in.

Yorick spirited his hero

at the end, lending him his

father’s skull to talk to—

this is fiction, after all!...

Hamlet took, to be or not

to be’d the orb, then fought.

Then everyone went home,

or, in our case, to the plot

our tent was pitched.

Yorick has a son, doing

Yorick things, more than

dreamt in your philosophy.