I feel much better that this post is late, because I’m justifying its timing to yesterday’s World Cup final, which I watched at a local pub in Cambridge (where I am now).  But for today, a sonnet devoted to Amsterdam, in honor of my stay there, and to lament its loss to the country I had arrived there from.  

O Amsterdam!  The land where I did bike

Of all your beauteous blue canals I sing

In shops of smoke and lights of red I like

To savor in the pleasures that they bring.

Of hutspot, kunst and bier what can I say?

The culture of the Dutch I savored when

Amongst the crowds along great Rokin way

I drowned my hopes and joys with Heineken. 

To all ye folks of orange-clad good cheer:

Do not despair, and stifle all your cries

The Cup will come for you another year

So wipe the tears that fall from your blue eyes.

Just hearken back to times of trade so grand

And never lose the cry of “Hup, Holland!”