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# Dying in Amsterdam
- URL: https://www.merionwest.com/dying-in-amsterdam/
- Published: 2023-10-16T00:00:52.000Z
- Updated: 2025-06-12T16:54:57.000Z
- Description: “What magnificent coordination. A ballet/on wheels. Impossible, but there it was/day after rainy day, not one collision.”
- Author: W. D. Ehrhart
- Tags: Poetry, Arts, Legacy, #wp, #wp-post, #Import 2025-05-06 12:48

> I went to Amsterdam when I was sixty-two,

> old enough to let slip by my first opportunity

> in over forty years to smoke marijuana legally.

> Did I really want to be stoned in a strange city

> in a foreign country where I knew no one?

> Probably good dope, too, me in a cloud

> wondering where my hotel was.

> So I passed on that one, settled for a beer

> in a bar across the street, feeling old.

> But all these years later, I still remember

> downtown streets filled with bicycles,

> and almost every bike—I swear—ridden

> by a lovely young Hollander, often

> holding an open umbrella in one hand

> and texting on a cell phone with the other.

> What magnificent coordination. A ballet

> on wheels. Impossible, but there it was

> day after rainy day, not one collision.

> I thought then, and still think now,

> I wouldn’t mind being knocked down

> and ridden over on a street in Amsterdam

> by a lovely young woman on a bike.

> My definition of Dutch Treat.

### *W. D. Ehrhart has authored or edited a number of collections of poetry and prose, most recently* [*Thank You for Your Service: Collected Poems*](https://www.amazon.com/Thank-You-Your-Service-Collected/dp/1476678537?ref=merionwest.com) *and* [*What We Can and Can’t Afford: Essays on Vietnam, Patriotism, and American Life*](https://www.amazon.com/What-Can-Cant-Afford-Patriotism/dp/1476692203?ref=merionwest.com)*, both from McFarland & Company, Inc. He holds a Ph.D. from University of Wales at Swansea and taught at The Haverford School in Pennsylvania from 2001 to 2019.*