Poem by Elizabeth Bishop

Chemin De Fer

Alone on the railroad track
  I walked with pounding heart.
The ties were too close together
  or maybe too far apart.

The scenery was impoverished:
  scrub-pine and oak; beyond
its mingled gray-green foliage
  I saw the little pond

where the dirty old hermit lives,
  lie like an old tear
holding onto its injuries
  lucidly year after year.

The hermit shot off his shot-gun
  and the tree by his cabin shook.
Over the pond went a ripple
  The pet hen went chook-chook.

”Love should be put into action!”
  screamed the old hermit.
Across the pond an echo
  tried and tried to confirm it.

1. Seascape
2. The Map
3. Strayed Crab
4. Manuelzinho
5. Sonnet (Caught - the bubble)

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