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Third of Four Poems Composed During The Author's 2008 Tour of Slovenia |
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The rocky trail---once snow,
then stream---
Winds thru the greenest densest spruce-rich forest
Up the limestone mountains
Striped with tracks of savage bygone avalanches.
Meadows host the tribes
of bovines now
That dominate in summer,
Blithely wandering unbound by fences,
Tame enough to pet,
Tame enough to lick back
With extravagance of dripping tongue.
At last, the climber
meets the mountain hut,
Where wartime occupiers killed
The headstrong partisans
Who fought and hid and sacrificed
To bring their children liberty.
Sustained, a blessed
peace prevails once more,
Proclaimed exultantly by flowers in the wild
That dot the field with every rainbow color
To invite a visit from the buzzing bees.
They're serenaded by the cowbell concerts
Of the grazing cowherds,
Punctuated by celestial rumbles and a nearby squall.
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Aromas most delectable
From farm-cooked soup of pork and beans
Emerge from wood-fired kitchen,
Soon to quell the raging appetite.
The place and time idyllic nourish generously the storm-tossed
soul
And make me love this land
Where animal and human work congenially
While birds sing out in feathery cadenzas.
The world here radiates
serenity and beauty,
Stating firmly every day
That partisans will not have died in vain.
---Triglav National Park, Slovenia
©2008 by Paul Hertelendy. The photos are of actual scenes in Triglav National Park. This poem first posted Sept. 1, 2008.
Paul Hertelendy is critic and webmaster for the arts-review web site www.artssf.com, and is also the Piedmont (CA) Centennial poet laureate. To visit his website, click here: PAUL
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