Retired from the public life
of foreign service --
oubliettes and abbatoirs -- his
private heart remembers
nothing that his blood forgets.
Magical, musical memoirs,
these have been written by a
man whose life is still subject
to threats though he lives
surrounded by a net of dikes.
When parachuting for sport in the mountains
always remember: at the first sight of water,
even of ice, control your descent. Keep dry.
Take the first road home.
"We used to call it The Boxes. The
mills were here." reached it by cycling
over oakleaves in half-sunlight in the
underground woods "during the war.
Now it's the new student lounge."
In the fire station back room on the
wall
all the alarm boxes of the city were
represented
by blue cones of gas flame. Long
after the
air raids and fire storms the pilot
testified
a gas beacon had guided his
bombardier.
It was the war within the peace, God
in the mighty fortress-machine,
everything under the surface: you
couldn't know which trees were
reinforced with steel trunks. And
whatever voice we heard croaking
orders and proverbs out of the
earth . . . well of course it had to be
God's.
