Bohemian
Landscape Through a Train Window
The frames move smoothly, each to the next,
of meadows with their wildflowers
and villages whose roots
run deep beneath the hills
on which they have been built.
An aging silence
is stored inside the cellars
with vegetables, preserved by cool air
and the dark. Forests step down
toward the tracks
and offer a few minutes of mystery
when the trees look into the carriages
to see who is coming
and whether we have saws
to cut them down. Then fields
return, and paths
winding between them
with people carrying baskets
filled with fruit
back to a century of sunlight and storms,
a time before the factories were built,
before they leaked
their oils into the ground,
before their smoke and grinding wheels.
The journey continues. Nobody knows
where we are going. We can’t tell
the tunnels from the night.
Copyright © 2005 David Chorlton