Читать книгу The Uncertain Land and Other Poems - Patrick O’Brian - Страница 12

Cold from the silent leaden sky, unmoving, full of snow.

Cold, and the sounds far on the smoky air –

the rackle, hoe in stones, the stoney vineyard high

and the working man much farther than the sound

All through the terraced valley, sounds.

The vines are bare, the spare leaves redden:

they prune: and everywhere they grub with shining tools

And in the silence sounds – on silence beads, the sounds.

Now there are women.

gabbling

Where are the women? There

gabbling

above the road, the vines, the olives

the prim the graceful olive trees

the women picking there the olives

a tilted plane, the trees, the women

and then the sky, one-coloured, leaden.

Neat, clear, unworldly, Pieter Brueghel.

I do not like to see the women.

Black. Not shining. Black entirely.

head to foot, and cheesey faces.

Eager, hard and clacking voices: and the hands

are deadly white for ever groping,

They stand as high, and monstrously

they stand as high, as does the tree.

Their hands

are deadly white, for ever groping.

Emasculating

in the trees.