Crossing the Falls on the Rhine at Schaffhausen
(Part One)
We crossed the Falls at Schaffhausen in a snowy
blizzard
tracking through a pass whose wherabouts nobody knew,
in a creaky coach, windows snow thickened as sleepy eyelids
shaking in fear.
And we could barely see but for occasional glimpes of slatey gorges
stretching down to an ice green river where stood tiny houses
like rows of old false teeth
covered in a grey sky the colour of approaching death,
plus the odd glimpse of a lightening sky
cutting open like a hungry mouth.
And we didn't know that we were crossing
the Rhine until a bottle of German Schnapps
crashed from an overhead luggage rack.
And our driver going bald, with sweaty palms
reached for his filterless Gauloise cigarettes
and gave a thirsty glare our way in his rear view mirror
and stopped the coach in a pull up on the pass,
saying his company allowed no drinking on its vehicles,
which everone had ignored the last five hundred miles.
So drunks quaffed shots and the sobers drank pop.
He seemed pissed off
and slung the coach in a high rev take off
and that is how we approached the the Rhine at Schaffausen
though we didn't even know it.
So we didn't know we were crossing the famous Falls.
Had no way of knowing
as we had never heard of them.
I travelled from a seedy Geneva hotel to find
adventure in Europe and was poor in cash.
When the coach pulled up again the others got off.
Like them I didn't I rush off drunk on hunger
to gobble sausage schnitzzels and chips
I was making it on Lord of the Rings style
three loaves of pre-packed Lembas magic bread
a jar of strawbwrry jam and Sun-Brite peanut butter
all spread with a lickable plastic knife.
And that bottle of German schnapps that crashed out missing
a passengers head by a hairs breadth bounced
without breaking came to stop against a foot rest
in the aisle way
and the passenger whose head was missed, his name was Wally,
reached down, got that bottle and held it aloft with a big grin.
And all those who saw clapped loudly.
He waved it at that driver who stopped the coach
and made that speech.
And then pausing just a moment
his voice came on again but this time more gently;
was full of pride, that surprized us I think, for
he said, You are crossing the Falls on the Rhine at Schaffhausen
and about to enter another part of Germany.
Spoken in the way he did
it felt that Moses had just parted the Red Sea.
And it all went hushly quiet apart from the sound of falling water.
We all went very silent, very suddenly
slowing leaning back in our seats
our heads leaning to one side
watching through steam rubbed windows
the drifting snow and
the Falls on the Rhine at Schaffhausen.
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