Almost a Guardian Saturday Poem

    Alpine Scouting

    We strengthened our legs at Les Nuages

    using bull oil and the bark of the beady pine.

    Gum bees hummed what seemed like the Marseillaise.

    Jean-Paul had crocked his toggle.  Marsh widgeons wheeled.

    The field was white and to cross was a shin-bleaching. 

    “Where the foot falls, the boot falls too,” Le Maitre had said

    but as we trekked, news came from Laprune

    of the English orchestra.  A wood-fox wailed

    like Baudelaire’s kazoo. 

    We supped at Haute Montagne where can be plucked

    goose-weed for fire-making.  When we opened the silver tin