Vevey, Switzerland.
Mont Pélerin poems above Vevey
Low hanging the clouds
No sky, just grey
Dismal is this another day
……………………..shrouds
Funeral flowers
have withered away
…………………..shortlived
No sun, no sound.
A bell chimes
As in gone-by times…….
…
Steam engine of bygone days
Puffs its clouds across the lake
Disappearing, reappearing.
Reappearing, disappearing.
Mountainous outlines of another age.
Horn blasts out of the fog
Boat slides by on the ripples of the lake.
…
Distant drone of motor cars
Occasional bird call
Rain pattering. Muted
voices, doors opening, closing.
Rain pouring.
Lonely chair
sits looking at lonely view
Empty, cold and wet.
Strange Summer this.
…
Sahara heat baked July
Green fields burnt brown and dry
Farmers harvested in the corn
fearing unexpected thunderstorm
A diamond collier
this cobweb
wet with rain drop pearls
shimmering in the cold grey light
Torrent after torrent
through the darkness of the night
Wake up again to the same sad sight…
…
The summer of the many butterflies
All colours, all sorts
Fluttering here, fluttering there
Accompanying the bees, the wasps,
the hornets too
Who built a nest outside our loo
They buzzed and zoomed and droned
like the villagers who wailed and moaned
Too cold this winter and now too hot
Never satisfied with what they’ve got
…
Another day
Above Vevey
Still and grey –
Still grey.
Where the August blue sky?
The Alpine panorama?
Where the mirrored reflections
in the still water of the lake?
Where have they gone those golden rays
Of long warm Summer days?
…
Grey is not always grey.
Sometimes lacklustre yellow or bilious green.
Or acid blue or shady mauve.
Day is not always day.
Can be night. Or morning.
Hell or heaven.
Short or long or in-between.
Colourful and bright
like a rainbow between earth and sky.
Or shades of metal, icy, hard
sickly hues matching the mood.
© Heather Cameron-Fischer
(Hôtel du Parc, Mont Pèlerin
(Vevey), Suisse, August 2006)
