Near the meadows the wind pursues a quarrel
with the weathercocks, a tiny detail
of some burgomaster's stately home,
red with brick and blue with slate
near the bright and endless meadows.
 
Like trees in fairytales
the ashes are vague lines of foliage
spaced out across a thousand horizons
of this pastoral Sahara,
clover, lucerne and pale grasses.
 
The carriages pass in silence
through these calm landscapes.
Sleep, you cows! Sleep,
gentle bulls of the vast plain,
under your dull cloudy skies!
 
The train slides by without a murmur,
each carriage a salon
where people talk softly and
have the leisure to admire
this nature just as Fénelon would wish it.