Brittany

Eastward the sun, new knowledge in his beak,

action's chanticleer at break of day

rose like our hope and called through Brittany,

and always east along the dusthung roads.

O sun of summer! how you came to us

a messenger sprung out of Gallic dawn,

backed by quaint towns on history-shaded streams,

Troyes' temple, orchards mellowed from far time:

yet flushed with laughing girls: alive to now.

It was crusade, death march, and holiday.

Street féte in a liberated town

with ceaseless voices shouting, Vive l'Amérique!

We drank fresh cider in those villages.

Evening ambush from the darkened east.

At night the memories trickling from home,

a stream hid in the absorbed mind all day.

Yet I remember Brittany in light,

always in light, until the City of Light

where bullets lately chipped the Pantheon.

And eastward, summer-heavy earth of France,

young, fatal now, decked by medieval life.