Across Normandy a faster clip
than horses, the click of train on rails,
the mistbreath of a multitude
of Camembert cows hidden behind
hedges or exposed-timber-frame houses.
Roofs high, trees low, leaves cling
to summer, yet October
breathes sweet grass and green.
Somewhere there are farmers
and their wives and children.
Here, only lumpy meadows
and steeples peering over
from the next town.
Author notes
p. 81
What works? What doesn't?
Comments
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In America, especially rural America where there are no trains, no ELs, no subways, entire generations do not have memories of such images as you handle deftly...
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le is an anagram for el, but they probably don't have those in Normandy. el trains that is.
le train? what about le frog? yOu seen "Flushed Away?" Probably not, your kids are too old for that. I love it, though, and i'm like only a wee bit younger than the venerable worm. Wonder where he is.
anyway. yes, you should see flushed away. It's surpsisingly funny.
i think the title is perfect for this poem. it's a view from a moving window, like watching a very boring but very well made and profound movie that is only about the scenery, lacking any lines or human performance. ON a screen that would suck, but in a poem it kicks ass.
I, like you, am atavistically (?) clinging to the one applause to avoid inflation. (What's next? 40 at a click?)
Though you forgot to give me my singular clap on my latest. Either that or you have become rigidly critical of my palaver. Either way, I'm destroyed.
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Roofs high, trees low, leaves cling
to summer, yet October
breathes sweet grass and green.
my senses went into an overload there. i really was smelling the freshly cut grass, and seeing the autumn around me. you've penned excellently.
je t'aime, je t'aime.
j -
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merci, merci
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For some reason I find this poem to be --
quite excellent. It's like a vignette, but breathing with life. This is really good.
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This one really moves!
It feels like a fast train running all out
glimpses from the window....
wher'es the club car?
I like!
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This has a very calming feel to it...relaxed, lost in the scenery. It's beauty and where thoughts go in moments of quiet. I enjoyed this snippet of a train ride. Thanks for sharing
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I was surprised - thought it was going to be a train poem. There are so many good ones in that book. Well it is a train poem obviously. This.
Only line I trip on is:
the mistbreath of a multitude
of Camembert cows hidden behind
hedges or exposed-timber-frame houses.
It is my favorite line because you rhyme cows and houses. All the sounds are great -- clip/click, summer/October. And the last line is perfecto.
but wondering about misbreath OF a multitude OF probably okay but it kind of interupts me. I also keep reading missbreath and not mistbreath. which isn't a problem i like it either way. LOL.
the mistbreath, a multitude
of Camembert cows hidden behind
just testing it out without that first OF A.
This is my favorite so far. I really like Plums but I like this better.
Lisa
(I am going to go back to damn Walt).
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I tried I tried I tried to get rid of the double "of", but just couldn't see my way to it. I want the breath to belong to the cows. And the cows, I never saw a single cow in Normandy, and I was all over the place, yet Normandy is known for cream and Camembert, I know they had to be there, and lots, hence the multitude. At first I had in a bit about their being invisible, but that was redundant.
Why am I exposing my process? I dunno. Anyhow thank you for your good eye and for hearing rhymes I'll pretend were intentional.
Z
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this reminded me of a summer in 74'...a train ride to Hunstanton Beach in England...may have been the tracks...or the cows...no mention of windmills here but I still see the wind moving them along
thanks for the imagery
peace Muddy
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I want to ride a train now. Maybe just to the city, but it's always peaceful. I love to look over the rooftops as they pass by...and wish to be on top of them. What is it about trains and rooftops?
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"mistbreath" -might have to steal that.
Somehow you have managed to make this Normandy rather than any other place, and I don't quite know how you have done it- there are the same ingredients in many rural places, yet you have made this specific and I don't think it is the 'camembert' cows on their own that do it. I can smell this poem, and it makes me feel tingly, like I am one of the farmers waving at the train and saying 'Here I am , Je suis ici'
Now look what you made me do. You made me find my scrambled password.
Stef.
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Et voila! Tu es ici! Et je suis tres heureux.
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Hello you.... well, i know this part of the world so this is rich and lush to me.. the camembert cows did it ... (made me smile) ...... but not in a cheesy way...
my only niggler.... i think i'd like to peer and not have peering?
Here, only lumpy meadows
and steeples peer over
from the next town... ? ---- maybe it's the sound?
as the whole piece is said in that staccato voice... as in the low hum of a train... peering seems to jolt a little on the tongue....
gosh.... i'm getting quite the critiquer on your pieces... hehehehheheheehehhehehe
-----giggles
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I am exploring a cautious return to "ing". I think it has it's place, if it sets the image right.
BUT, carry on with your nigglers, cos you find my blind spots sometimes. No need to giggle like a school girl, silly.
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