Travellers In The Dream Trade
Who bothers where this road goes?
(R.S. Thomas: 'Manet - The Bas-Breau Road’)
Silent; not for getting anywhere? No,
they're for going full pelt on, nose bent
by Northern cobbles, guzzling miles
through the day's gruel, hunts and time trials.
In the Cafe Mec waiting for rain to stop,
curtained by fug, the runny window frames
a dumbshow of poets, cyclists, painters --
culture's hardmen pickled in Bock.
One gap and they're knocking back
Beauce wheatfields, villages sweet as a bird's throat.
Stage wins, an express love for summer's country
fill their heads, afloat on the blond stream,
these travellers in the dream trade who'd payout
heart's gold for a yellow shirt, and sport
badges of old blood. 'Give it all you've got;
when you die, you die.' Wheels argue the toss.
Spokes and arms, a sorry ditchful mourns
as massed bands of knees go by. Then the slow uphill ballet
till sober among sheepbells and drystone trickles
they taste the rare chateau-bottled air.
The road falls steep as water. They take the plunge.
Tucked under shirts in the downhill chill,
Paris Soir, Bild, de Volkskrant prattle,
shooting the asphalt rapids. Through tar ripple
where Camargue heat waves the leaders on
nothing's in view but the road and riders.
Pied and stripy they are the scenery,
watching who's gone too far, who's come unstuck
In a rear wheel waltz clutching the hedge
to their bosom; weeping alone on the road
or perched by the roadside, pink as a flamingo.
A loose tuft wavers till the broom car sweeps it up.
Was the winning post a dead end?
Better not finish the race whose prize
is to stop riding? Trees like men waiting
give this inkling in the cold: growth is to come.
White-flagged, the square surrenders to winter.
Cars are overtaken by the bread queue.
In the cafe's din sore heads thicken the stew.
It's 19 -- -- The Winter Circus begins.
Page(s) 23-24
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