"Nonstop rhythm of words and speed / the sound of the young, the sound of the city"

[larryhammer]

Back late last night (over 25 hours of travel) from two weeks in Switzerland and Germany for tourism and meeting the new nephew. Both parts were good: Basel, hiking in the Black Forest, a couple days in Freiburg and Munich, and a day-trip to Zug (*waves to mummo74*). Trip reading was Don Juan (I had Milton, but he wasn't ... Continental enough) plus Tim Powers' Declare. Language observation: it took a full week for the German-processing part of my brain to fully engage gears, at which point the clutch for Japanese slipped, and now needs a new pad.

No photos (we accidentally erased our camera near the end) and no trip poetry.

Or maybe I lie about that last. I did write down scattered details that may be the raw material for one. Or may be an early draft of a prose poem. Hard to tell.

The cheetering cries of swallows as the circle a courtyard. A red münster at night, lit faintly by floodlights. Holding a baby over a cold balcony to watch street repairs four stories below, because it keeps him quiet. Chestnut torches.

Cobbled streets, irrigated. Narrow, twisting stair through red stone. Close cathedral bells, ringing my head. Flat rising path, with birds, green on green under green. Undergrowth skitters -- not lizards but voles. Old castle wall, overgrown into a bank.

Beeches in fog, dripping, bright fledged green. Greens upon greens -- fir, moss, lichen. A lake 400m across, gray with the cloud low above. Birdcalls, and more birdcalls. A hallway of old, dark wood where the motion-detecting light has gone out. Dark woods made darker by the close gray mist. Beeches, sway-hipped, spreading from a common root. Slugs, fingerlong and mushroomblack. Drip.

A windswept mountaintop, treeless, over a kilometer long. High trees unleafed, low trees leaving -- the line of spring on the hillside. Moss -- under firs and ferns, over rock and root and trunk and seep. Blue mountain lake below. Sun through needles. Bright fir forest.

Elaborately limestone cliffs dug high enough to hold if not castles at least villas on top. Bright yellow rapefields. Uniform village houses, white under red roofs. Fields of solar panels. Evening traffic and birdcalls through an open window. Cobblestones in arcs, under gothic arches. Two swans and two cygnets in the moat of a schloss, koi beneath and raven above. Sun. Tourists. Time.

A stork circles under gray clouds. As the train sways round a curve, sudden Lake Constance. Rhine en-gorged by close stone houses. Swallows swooping the train station, cheeting in a flock. Sour baby barf. Cool breeze after thunderstorm. Pale purple irises playing with the wind and sun. A stork soars in the blue.

Chestnut torchflowers put out by rain, brown ashpetals on sidewalks. Alps over stormy lake, half-hidden by broken clouds. A narrow medieval stair of modern wood. A "schloss" smaller than a stone's throw, whitewash-walled and museum-moated. A late sunset outside a quiet train station.

Sunday, morning, Altstadt, drizzle: streets empty. Afternoon, rain, cloudrift: shower brightly backlight. Evening, cloudsedge: low sun yellowing everything. Blackbird singing above two boys with a ball. A red münster by daylight, echoing organpipes. Dawn: wet streets empty, airport train full.

If I do swot this up into something more artistic, obviously some of the repetitions will have to go -- but I'm amused at how many are structural, given these were jotted down randomly. Also, the paragraphing is pretty random.

So has anything been happening in the greater world? Or on LJ?

(previous posts about the trip, which had been f-locked, are now public.)

Comments

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

Lovely images!

[larryhammer]

Now if only I can make something of them ...

[galeni.livejournal.com]

I'm going to Europe in September/October on a fact-finding trip for work. That's new. England on my own (and maybe Cardiff), then Berlin, Koln, Utrecht, Paris and Milan. And adding Rome and environs at the end. So about three weeks of work and almost two weeks of vacation. I'm scared/thrilled.

[larryhammer]

That would be because it's thrilling and scary, I expect.

---L.

[galeni.livejournal.com]

Well, yes. But one feels one shouldn't be scared. British stiff upper lip and all that.

[janni.livejournal.com]

I really recommend the Lonely Planet guidebooks--they've been hugely helpful in our travels.

[galeni.livejournal.com]

During the Volcano-clypse, Lonely Planet offered their iPhone City apps for free, so I got the ones for the places I'm going. At least one of them already has had an update, so they stay current. Which is good since I'm not going for a few months yet.

I've been reading books by the ton, so if knowledge and preparation can guarantee a great trip (which I know they can't), I'll have a fabulous one!

So thank you, and yes.