We stopped.
Skis crunched the snow and
we sheltered near spruce
erupting from the white.
We ate:
milk chocolate - and
loose-jacket clementines
we should have savoured.
We watched
them march in the town square,
sure we heard the slap of the
goose-step on icy cobbles.
We looked
through Zeiss lenses, counting.
Bates wrote notes, pencil
gripped in ice-numbed fingers.
They rode,
in and on the vehicles
whose existence had been
denied by politicians.
We spoke,
promised we'd be back to
ski with Bechstein the
guide, but never were.
Comments
chuck | December 24, 2008 - 17:58
Most odd. I get a picture of H.E.Bates and T.S.Eliot on a skiing holiday but I don't think they ever were.
Silver Spun Sand | December 24, 2008 - 18:16
"We ate:
milk chocolate - and
loose-jacket clementines
we should have savoured"
For me, this stanza said it all. Another good one, Ewan. Oh, and compliments of the season to you and yours, of course.
Tina
Bradene | December 25, 2008 - 18:43
This reminded me of that old film The Mortal Storm a little. Val
Ewan | December 26, 2008 - 13:43
I know that film Val, some people say it was that particular film -which doesn't mention the N-word by the way - that caused MGM films to be banned throughout the 3rd Reich even before the Yanks - as they like to put it- came to the rescue. More likely it was because the GM stood for Goldwyn and Mayer.
:-)