Swiss Bliss

By Sakshat Rao

I sat on a wooden bench by a gray gravel trail

Which ran alongside a little babbling brook.

I sat, as if tucked in a cozy blanket of peace

That surrounded me for as far as I could look.

I heard the emerald-blue water dribble down

Its pebbly downstream course of mud and silt.

I saw the evening shimmer from the distant waters

Over which a small stone bridge had been built.

My nose tingled at the sight of a local woman

Crossing the bridge, carrying freshly baked bread.

Dressed in simple clothes, adorned by her simpler smile,

Living the simplest of lives that she could have led.

With the people retreating to their homely warmth,

I gazed at the evening sky looking wondrously splendid.

The blue daylight morphed into an orangish glow as,

Behind the Alpine summits, the tired sun descended.

The gentle mountains lovingly cradled the sleepy town.

In the settling darkness, they did not make a sound

Apart from the few cowbells softly ringing in the valleys

From the necks of the cows mindlessly grazing around.

The icy breeze, playing the cowbells like wind chimes,

Drifted from the hilly heights onto my dry cheeks.

A freezing chill zipped up my spine, as if I, myself,

Was touching the snow of the glistening white peaks.

And somewhere in the unknown distance, I imagined

The melting ice dripping and forming the river source

To rapidly flow through the steep pine forests until I finally

Could hear it dribble down its pebbly downstream course.

There, by a brook in a foreign town guarded by the

Snow-peaked giants singing the tunes of cowbells,

I sat on a wooden bench by a gray gravel trail,

Filled with a bliss that I could find nowhere else.

By Sakshat Rao