Robert Haslam

My Double Life with the Swiss

We didn’t subscribe to newspapers,

or to foolhardy magazines, so big concepts

were, to our good fortune, lost on us.

Our children, naturally, could multiply

and divide, and recite a verse on the seasons,

but we taught them no pledges, and as to whom

they could trust, well, that was simple:

bus drivers and dimpled chocolatiers,

mustachioed old gentlemen at the bank,

the village maidens who hemmed their skirts and trousers.

Our water flowed from blowsy alpine springs,

and you could use it for anything—to wash

your socks and stockings, stoke your clothes-iron,

even loosen up a gravy in your pan.

Most spelled Economy with a small e.

Holidays, we hitched up the team,

took rides out to visit the husbandmen

where we churned cream, roasted pigs on spits,

and gathered herbs, both cultivated and wild.

Nobody ever seemed to arrive at work tired.