Chanson d’ Hounoux
Listen carefully and watch
The village signposts say
For we have a story of times now long gone
When grandmother’s grandmother was but a girl
She skips into school, first sign in our trail
Our tale of a school girl, in pinafore white
Who lines up each morning, now hushed and polite
For maîtresse is waiting and looking quite stern
Can you hear them all clatter and chatter to desks
The scratch of the slates where the lessons are learned
We’ll leave them to puzzle and struggle with verbs
With forming of tenses, with avoir /être
For out of the windows the sun’s in the sky
The men of the village are harvesting home
Cutting the wheat for the miller to grind
This once was his windmill his moulin
Next sign, only sign of the purpose
The life once here lived, sails long since dipped
The noise and the dust and the business all gone
And only a short step, from miller to bread
See here’s the boulangerie, baker at work
The clue’s on the window, the letters half- peeled
Just smell the baguettes, petits pains and the flutes
Ready for midi, St Martin’s bell chimes
Bell-ringer punctual to signal the time
( Chimes still resounding, mechanical now)
When labourers all, from the field and the forge-
Next to the schoolyard where horses are stamping
Horse-shoes long buried still lending a clue-
Village is heeding the call, not to prayer
But sacred observance, the midday repas
For this is the story of times now long gone
When those in the graveyard were noisy with life
Not silent, eternal, guarding the hill
Bequeathed to their children the tilling of fields
A story of people who love their terroir
Still making their mark in the rich soil of France
Listen carefully and watch
The village signposts say
For we have a story of times now long gone
When grandmother’s grandmother was but a girl
She skips into school, first sign in our trail
Our tale of a school girl, in pinafore white
Who lines up each morning, now hushed and polite
For maîtresse is waiting and looking quite stern
Can you hear them all clatter and chatter to desks
The scratch of the slates where the lessons are learned
We’ll leave them to puzzle and struggle with verbs
With forming of tenses, with avoir /être
For out of the windows the sun’s in the sky
The men of the village are harvesting home
Cutting the wheat for the miller to grind
This once was his windmill his moulin
Next sign, only sign of the purpose
The life once here lived, sails long since dipped
The noise and the dust and the business all gone
And only a short step, from miller to bread
See here’s the boulangerie, baker at work
The clue’s on the window, the letters half- peeled
Just smell the baguettes, petits pains and the flutes
Ready for midi, St Martin’s bell chimes
Bell-ringer punctual to signal the time
( Chimes still resounding, mechanical now)
When labourers all, from the field and the forge-
Next to the schoolyard where horses are stamping
Horse-shoes long buried still lending a clue-
Village is heeding the call, not to prayer
But sacred observance, the midday repas
For this is the story of times now long gone
When those in the graveyard were noisy with life
Not silent, eternal, guarding the hill
Bequeathed to their children the tilling of fields
A story of people who love their terroir
Still making their mark in the rich soil of France
2nd August 2009, Hounoux, inspired by Jenny's ' Granny's Apples'
You know Sally I would love to have seen Hounoux way back then. This poem has made me think of how it must have been-another world really.
ReplyDeleteI feel I can sort of 'see' it because of long chats with the older women- like Helene who was married to the miller and who still works the fields, in her late 70s. The same families are still there working the land, but yes, as you say, another world,with the shops and the forge and the miller. I love this kind of history.
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