Swiss Dispatches, Part 1

Sunday, 19 October 2008

I'm writing on our balcony in Interlaken --
    A lovely hostel where we take our ease
From all our -- chocolatin' and cuckoo-clockin' -- ?
    Well, no -- we hike more outdoor tours than these,
    Although we like exploring local cheese:
Perhaps you'll try this tasty Berner Käse?
We found it in the market on the plaza.

I squint into the sun and through the haze --
    The mornings in this season run to mist --
I see the Jungfrau: so we start these days,
    Watching the wooded foothills, autumn-kissed,
    And glacial peaks behind them in a tryst
With Alpine grandeur, putting god-like fire on.
As you can see, I've overdosed on Byron.

I've got good reasons, though, for all that reading:
    Manfred's castle is someplace hereabouts --
He climbed those snowy cliffs in haze receding --
    And, too, I read Childe Harold's frantic touts
    Of Lake Geneva as the best of out-and-outs
While passing -- not upon it -- by the shore,
By train -- the rain made ferry travel poor.

But here, I'm writing this all out of order --
    I got distracted as I tried to set the scene
(I fear I'm not a very good reporter):
    A sunny hostel balcony, pale green;
    Some ravens caw-cus on the hill, unseen;
A church-bell tolls the Sunday service slow
While cattle in the park clang, dong, and low.

That's right -- the city park across the street
    Has cows. We're told that this is temporary,
Just for the winter, when the snow and sleet
    And cold make higher alpine pastures scary.
    The Swiss are serious about their dairy,
And let all lowland plots of grass for grazing --
Makes sense, but meeting moo right here's amazing.

Now having set my scene, I'll stop right here --
    Today's our day to laze, and more'd be work.
Of Basel and Geneva, mountains near
    And far, I'll tell you -- later. I'm no jerk,
    Believe me, please -- indulge, this once, my quirk.
(We'll take a cog-rail to a restaurant
This afternoon -- I say this just to taunt.)


The Raurica Augusta sonnet was the only report I made of our first Switzerland trip; for our second, I did a three-part epistolary report, of which this is the first. Written as described, which is, for me, unusually productive -- 20 usable lines is my usual daily upper limit. Links are to relevant photos, the Jungfrau as seen from the balcony, taken the next day. Note that Käse/plaza is not in fact a rhyme (ä is closer to the English name for the letter A than it is to ah) but I have no plans to fix it because the couplet is otherwise excellent, and that we ended up taking a funicular not a cog-rail.

---L.