Gestures

but, as you've said, the structure

-impeccable-of their

grammar reflects the logic

of the French mind. We've been here

two months. The neighbors now

say 'Bonjour, Monsieur';

in our village there are two eggs

for sale each second day,

reserved for the toothless aged

or a sick bébé.

When our boy Tad got queasy

and couldn't take his meat

at l'épicerie they sold me

un oeuf for him to eat.

My accent's improving.

GESTURES

Before train-time they swept across the track

Bare-headed or beretted, in a tide

Bearing loaves

Of pain d'épice, bottles of Nuits-St-George

And Chambertin. The engine nudged a furrow

Across their crest and chuffled to a stop.

They thrust the loaves and bottles

Of the best they had to give toward open windows

Where bleared and grizzled, the late triumphant hosts

Of Budapest

Outstretched their hands in pauperage and pain

And pride. Vive la libertél Vive

La liberté, chanted the crowd. The few

With French enough replied

'Merci' for Dijon's gifts of gratitude,

Of homage to their hopeless hope, of guilt

That others died,

That others fought and fled, their future left

Behind, like the boy propped on that hard-backed bench,

A bullet swollen in his throbbing arm,

While we communed with pain

D'épice and premiers crüs. The engine, watered,

Whooshed and strained. The stock began to roll

Toward the mountains:

A disused camp for Prisoners of War

Would roof them in while squat Red tanks patrol

All homeward roads past Austria. Then peace

Settled from grimy skies

Asa wild gull, daubed in coaltar, flounders

Disconsolately down to a joyless rock.

In bitter weather

We heard that some escaped Hungarians,

One with a sling, from Dole toiled up the Juras

Toward the immaculate freedom of that zone

That looms in Alpine snow.