September 13– Conques to Colmar
Taxi to Gare de Cransac
to a desolate, abandoned rail station.
Fear not!
Our scheduled train arrived
a point.
Transfer to Gare de Brive la Gaillarde
with reserved seats went
un, deux, trois.
In Paris at Gare de Austerlitz,
padlocked gates at metro 5
No taxis.
In small print taped to the gate,
a “social action” aka strike
was announced.
No metro, no buses, no trams, no nothing.
La Grève ! The full French experience,
minus the Communists.
Une journée noire
on Friday the 13th.
Overwhelmed, we walked to Gare de Nord,
then stood in a long line to speak with
an agent for the non-striking regional trains.
She booked us a later train with seat reservations
for no extra charge!
And then we took a train to Gare de l’Est
for the train to Strasbourg, where we met
French guardian angel #3–
a passenger who heaved our suitcases
onto the overhead rack.
Mille mercis!
To Colmar!
Flashback: today’s incident.
In the Paris Metro, chaos.
No bus, no nothing, precedent
not unheard of. Sorry, no pathos
for strikers. Impudent.
September 14 Colmar
We made a pilgrimage in Colmar
to the Musée Unterlinden
with works by Picasso and Bonnard
and the Isenheim altarpiece.
Charlotte flipped over this triptych
to examine this masterpiece,
overshadowing the mystic
Mass itself, the centerpiece.
.
