14th July Paris 1952 Remembered During Tour De France 2020 Poem by Jean Bernard Parr

A lone leaf falls, meanders to meet
a sprouting of bayonets fixed
steel shoots upright and still
this altogether a ceremony
of stiffness and I am small
wedged in a trouserleg woodland
I heard the crowd breathe
and felt silence bloom across Elysee.

entrance of drumroll and jingle
of horse, artillery boom and
a glint through grey trees

but now is not then, and on TV
look! how supple these rubber men
whose slender wheels tremble over
glossed Paris cobbles, they swarm
out from the tunnel as if bidden
by golden Joan, her standard aloft

here, this cloud of speed-locusts,
distance-devouring;
they turn as one in flashing colours
that say "this is me, not you"
today the tricolours slap and clap

today no silence, no cannonade
no jingle before the horse
the crowd cheer swells
to the long race about to run its course