Monday, 15 May 2023

#1230 - night train to Vatra Dornei

 



1230

15.v.23

4.135

night train to Vatra Dornei

 

so much of it is village dimly

the flat lands

 

through which one might wish

from the city

bombed over

 

coup upon coup

 

a dream of the prince and the cheese

 

we are leaving

 

it’s motorbikes all night

it’s spirit fuelled

 

robbed and burned

now ruins

 

all are leaving

 

now away from the crowds

in a little compartment

 

hear only the speech of steel wheels

all of the nation is passing

 

as waves to bear us

perhaps it’s not sleep

but lay flat like the land

 

a clatter and rattle  

north to begin

 

.

 

towers of old smoke in a half dark

 

little yawn and bigger

 

squeak, toot

keep on

cast of shadows creeps through the cabin

 

could perhaps call this repose

close and cabin cosy

 

until the mountains come

 

.

 

in through an open window

the cow all nine floors levitated

 

strange signs on the wall for a child

 

take these for a proof

 

the Romans laid these Dacia tracks

this must be the thousand year train

Wallachia to Bukovina

 

beware the barbarous Scythian

 

undoze

roll over

sit up and read

 

.

 

out there

night still passing away like a country

the place that was before  

it is a headlong thing

 

with our tracks

and treeless mostly till

 

 

.

 

first light

blossom

peach

birch

far pine

 

fine cloud and coarse

a mess of wires

cranes, river runs

all the industrial trackside leavings

 

and from some windows

clothes hung to freeze

 

so many churchyards full of the gone

 

barns, blooms and the first bird

 

a whole world disassembled in someone’s backyard

 

the stolid station master with his flag

now all the colours come

 

smoke yet here there too

 

.

 

the valley opening, opening

sometimes whole farms dance

 

the green all greener than the hill is high

 

fences and tracks leading where

 

tin tile timber roof

crosses all round

 

old walls and yellow wells

the road itself runs by

 

snow pockets the furthest view 





















No comments:

Post a Comment

Note: only a member of this blog may post a comment.