Wednesday, August 24, 2005
Which leads surprisingly to another homeland
Jura landscape – not my photo
This is about the French Alps, where he lives, but it makes me think of the Jura – also mountainous and forested, but more gently than the Alps - where some friends of mine live for part of the year, just on the French side of the Swiss frontier, in an isolated house amid fields and woods and cows.
What astounds cannot be
the remnant of what
has been.
Tomorrow still blind
advances slowly.
Sight and light
race towards each other,
and from their embrace
is born the day,
eyes open
tall as a foal.
Murmuring river
clasps the mist
for a moment more.
The peaks are signing on
the sky.
Stop and hear
the milking machines
designed to suck like calves.
In the first heat
the forested hills calculate
their steepness.
The lorry driver is taking the road
to the pass which leads
surprisingly
with its own familiarity
to another homeland.
Soon the grass will be
warmer
than the cows’ horns.
The astounding comes
towards us
outrider of death and birth.
John Berger
from: and our faces, my heart, brief as photos
¶ 3:57 pm
Jura landscape – not my photo
This is about the French Alps, where he lives, but it makes me think of the Jura – also mountainous and forested, but more gently than the Alps - where some friends of mine live for part of the year, just on the French side of the Swiss frontier, in an isolated house amid fields and woods and cows.
What astounds cannot be
the remnant of what
has been.
Tomorrow still blind
advances slowly.
Sight and light
race towards each other,
and from their embrace
is born the day,
eyes open
tall as a foal.
Murmuring river
clasps the mist
for a moment more.
The peaks are signing on
the sky.
Stop and hear
the milking machines
designed to suck like calves.
In the first heat
the forested hills calculate
their steepness.
The lorry driver is taking the road
to the pass which leads
surprisingly
with its own familiarity
to another homeland.
Soon the grass will be
warmer
than the cows’ horns.
The astounding comes
towards us
outrider of death and birth.
John Berger
from: and our faces, my heart, brief as photos
¶ 3:57 pm
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Oh Jean, the spammers have got to you! Delete them quick and look on the bright side: they only target the popular ones.
Thanks for the John Berger - un vrai berger, celui-la.
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Thanks for the John Berger - un vrai berger, celui-la.
# posted by 
: 7:46 pm
: 7:46 pm
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