Self-Portrait Of The Reader Poem by Gaston Karel Mathilde Burssens

The landscape slides past us
a shabby cow on the side of the track
a village that shyly pushes past our vision
a white wall with the name of the village

The buttercups and daisies
stand in threadbare beauty beside the shabby cow
and have glided past the dirty windows
and past our eyes
[sic]

We are the natives of this shy village
and beside the cow we are the mortals
who despondently compare
the mooing of the cow with the tooting of the steam whistle

Translation:John Stevens Wade