Dèr Mouw - who else?

Still audible, far off, is the evening train. –

A farmer, blue against green corn, at work.

Heath. Above woods the tower of a church.

Quiet reigns – the railway track its prime domain.

Five lines of telegraph wires seem to trail

a stave; the clef – that birch tree can suffice;

the notes are swallows, black against red skies,

with stems and flags formed by their fine, long tails.

And from their beech-tree platform blackbirds sing

melodies with a Mendelssohnian ring;

the nightingale will start his nocturnes soon:

and, to remind him to call loud and clear

when his song gains its climax, there appears,

as skewed point-d’orgue, the crescent of the moon.