Zeitgeistlyrik: Leaving Zermatt (Satis Shroff)

Satis Shroff’s Zeitgeistlyrik:

LEAVING ZERMATT (Satis Shroff)
Leaving Zermatt,
1605m above sea level.
A blonde Dutch woman shook her head
And said to me:
‘We didn’t see anything
Up at the Little Matterhorn.
Only constantly rising mists
And grey clouds that veiled the Matterhorn.’
They hadn’t bothered doing any trekking
In the Swiss countryside.

* * *

AH, THE SAUNA (Satis Shroff)

The sauna and the whirlpool
Were good for my tired feet
And calf muscles.
An splendid compensation,
Chillaxing 
In the bubbling whirlpool
Thereafter.

The hotel’s noisy with visitors
Yet a serene and tranquil sauna,
For the people of Nippon 
Don’t like saunas and whirlpools 
In the evenings.

* * *

THE YOUNG MAN FROM NIPPON (Satis Shroff)

I remember we had a young man from Japan
Who learned German and played soccer
At the local sport club in Kappel.

After the match all players went
Under the shower to get rid of their sweat
And dirt,
But not our young man from Nippon.
He was shy about undressing
In the cabin,
In front of German men,
Walking and joking around in the pink.
Japanese men just don’t do it.

He always came home and took long, warm showers.

We in Germany say:
‘Er ist so verklemmt!’
A shy, inhibited person.

* * *

ETHNO APPARELS ARE COOL (Satis Shroff)
In Zermatt I ran into a hippie couple.
He reminded me of John Lenon,
And she of a Cheshire cat,
With all those wrinkles on her face.
You could plainly see,
The two had seen the world,
Smoked grass, trotted over the globe.

Now they’d settled down in Zermatt,
With its majestic glacial landscape,
And catered to the delights 
Of the visitors who needed woollies
In the icy reaches 
Of the Zermatt-Matterhorn chains.

Souvenirs from Nepal:
Buddhist prayer flags,
Indian cloth prints
The hippie generations have donned.
The current generation also buys the same.
Bollywood lifestyle has become chic
In the Alps and the towns.

I’m amazed at the young generation
Of Germans, Swiss, Italian women,
Who wear Benarasi brocades,
Chappals with imitation gemstones,
Pierced lips, diamond studded noses,
Gold ethno rings like the women
From Kirtipur and Rajasthan.
Ethno is cool.  

* * *
JAPANESE BEHIND COUNTERS (Satis Shroff)
It’s amazing how flexible 
The Swiss are in Zermatt,
Adapting to the Nipponese,
An important source of income.
Every hotel, restaurant, souvenir shop
Has notices in Japanese.
Japanese females behind the counters,
To read the wishes of Nipponese customers.
They shuffle around Switzerland in groups,
With their own translators.

* * *

MATTERVISP (Satis Shroff)

O how wonderful 
The trip from Zermatt to Visp via Täsch.
Past a milky Mattervisp river,
Past spurs lined with Prussian blue pine trees,
Like sentinels in Wilhelm Tell’s land.

Children playing golf,
Myriads of dark, wooden huts,
And piles of stones.

The mountain streams gush
To join the Mattervisp.
Alpine flowers sway along the way:
Edelweiss, enzian, alp rose, alpenveilchen,
Troll-flower, alpenglocken, mountain anemone.
Suddenly the mist clears
To reveal a rugged peak.

From Herbriggen I can see 
The walking routes,
Painted on a yellow board,
In black letters,
How long it takes to get there,
But not in kilometres.

The cliffs are uncovered 
When the thin veils of the misty mountains
Reveal them.
I see a jagged silhouette of pine trees
Along the ridges.

* * *

LANDSLIDES AND WATERFALLS (Satis Shroff)

Mixed forests make their appearance
After Saint Niklas,
And tunnels galore.
Since there’s only one track,
My train has to wait,
To let another go by.


ON PASSING AWAY

When you die in a foreign place
The soil of this land becomes yours,
And will be remembered
By your hamlet.

There are those who have fought
And lived,
Go to tell about it.

If you’re a Christian,
You’ll know the result of your action
On the Day of Judgement.

If you’re a Hindu,
Your soul travels
With speed of light,
To be one with the cosmos,
Depending upon your karma,
And the cycle of deeds,
Done on earth. 

* * *