Poetry Break: “Let Me Tell You Where I’ve Been” – Titlis Mountain

  Posted on September 14, 2020 By

 83 Comments

It’s a wild world out there right now. I don’t know about you guys, but I have found myself longing for somewhere quiet, somewhere green, somewhere peaceful. Since many of us can’t travel just yet, I feel lucky to have my many memories (and photographs) of the beautiful places I’ve been to give me a respite. So, this is a very special post for all of you out there who need something pretty and relaxing! 

“Let Me Tell You Where I’ve Been” – Titlis Mountain

Lush grass covered the mountainside

Rain swirled thick in the air

A pure lake where blue and green collide

Cool breezes tussled my hair

An ice cave beckoned, neon blue in tone

Dripping water echoed all around

The frigid air cut me right to the bone

And the tight spaces held me bound

From the summit I could almost see the whole world

Through the blowing, swirling snow

One of the scariest bridges on earth unfurled

I just tried not to look down below

But what charmed me most about Titlis

That heavenly mountain of the Swiss

Was the tinkling, plinking musical bliss

Ringing here and there, hard to miss

Like a happy chorus of bells and chimes

They ring all across the land

They cover the mountains, so sublime

Like their own special kind of band

When I first heard the soothing but strange sound

I looked all around me in wonder

What is that noise that is so profound?

Ringing everywhere, over and under?

It was then that I peered in the valley below

And I saw them scattered in herds

The grazing cattle and their cute little bells

Calling to each other without words

Now when I’m stressed, or sad, or scared

I think of a sound in my head

One that brings me back to a gorgeous mountain lair

Where I had hot soup and delicious bread

A sound that conjures scenes and sights

Like something from a fantasy book

Rainbows of flowers and snow-capped heights

A shining lake, and a stunning overlook

The cowbells of Titlis always chime

And I play them when I’m feeling blue

I listen to them anywhere, anytime

And now I’ll share them with you

Turn the volume way up on that video! 

Photos and video by M.B. Henry – for more from Switzerland and Europe, click here 

 Category: History

83 Comments on “Poetry Break: “Let Me Tell You Where I’ve Been” – Titlis Mountain”

    • Thanks so much! It was like heaven, especially since they had a cheese vending machine in the visitor’s center! That’s right. A cheese vending machine.

      Reply

  3. Thanks so much, M.B., for taking us up to this magical Swiss Alp and showing us the beauty of this mountain so very close to the clouds. The cowbells are a special treat, very special.

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    • 🙂 I’m so glad you enjoyed it – the cowbells were pretty neat I’m so glad to this day I took video of it.

      Reply

  4. I much enjoyed imagining being there on Titlis Mountain, even believed that my heights-thing would have not reappeared. Now I have the cowbells tingling in my ears, ever so gently. I wanted to ‘Like’ but tried as I would. I was unable to. Know then that I ‘Liked’ the experience, again, much.

    Reply

    • 🙂 So glad you enjoyed it, that’s all that matters! I actually have a bit of vertigo, but even on that terrifying bridge (which makes almost all versions of the world’s scariest bridges lists I’ve seen), my fears stayed at bay. I think the gorgeous scenery proved the best medicine!

      Reply

    • I definitely got a bit of vertigo on the bridge at the mountain’s summit, but the beautiful scenery helped keep my feet going across! 🙂

      Reply

  8. what a very pleasant distant tinkle … so soothing and love your poem! It’s important to have a memory of something that reminds us of peace and calm and that view on your video is so spacious MB, well done

    Reply

    • It was like something out of a fantasy book or movie up there -really can’t even take credit for how the video turned out, it’s hard to get bad video in a place like that haha! So glad you liked it and found it soothing 🙂

      Reply

      • very and soothes the savage beast! I used to live in a little hut next door to bull breeders and when their stock started snorting and pawing the ground itching for a fight with the huge breeding bull in the opposite field with all the cows
        … only chanting monks could calm them 🙂

    • Yes, I have lots more in that wartime series but I haven’t had the heart to post it lately. So I’ve been rhyming about travels I’ve really enjoyed for now 🙂 So glad you enjoyed it.

      Reply

  15. Beautiful, M. I was right there with you. We often hear cowbells when we are hiking up in the Sierra Nevada mountains in the summer. And they are musical. Most cows in a particular herd, at least in the Sierra’s, have different bells and the cowboys know which bell belongs to which cow. –Curt

    Reply

    • I really need to explore more of the Sierra Nevadas 🙂 Something tells me I would enjoy it immensely, especially the cow bells! Glad you enjoyed the post Curt 🙂

      Reply

  16. I love this MB! And the sounds of the cowbell are pretty delicious right? Everyone needs MORE COWBELL. 🙂 I wanted to buy an authentic Swiss cowbell when we were there, but could not find a good one. They are so big and really expensive, but also really beautiful.

    Reply

    • I wanted a cowbell too! But I didn’t have much time to look for one on that particular trip, so we settled for a cowbell magnet which rings pleasantly whenever we open the fridge 🙂

      Reply

  17. “Quiet”, “green”, “peaceful”…those things sound soooo incredibly comforting right now. But it’s such a hectic time right now. Sigh…

    Reply

    • Right??? What I wouldn’t give to go back to that mountain! Hope you and yours are at least staying safe and well, even if we can’t be quite sane right now!

      Reply

    • Uuugh – same with us for Croatia 🙁 Maybe next year! Glad I could show you a slice of it anyhow!

      Reply

  27. Your poem is lovely and soothing, although I confess to being greatly amused by how deeply the call for “more cowbell!” has penetrated our culture. There’s something about bells of any sort that I love; they have the same ability as windchimes to soothe away cares.

    Have you come across the Scandinavian practice of kulning — calling the cattle home by voice? Here’s a video that includes kulning and cowbells. The Wikipedia entry on kulning has some interesting details on the practice, which seems to go back centuries.

    Reply

    • Hahaha gotta love that more cow bell reference, I’m always surprised how often I still hear it! 🙂 I am not familiar with Kulning, sounds absolutely amazing though, thanks so much for sharing that video!

      Reply

  32. What beautiful and perfect words. The video gave it life! Oh how I long to go to Switzerland. I could feel an inkling of peace just in this clip. You’re a gifted writer. Blessings! 💚

    Reply

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“I do not mean to say that the scenes of the Revolution are now or ever will be entirely forgotten, but that, like everything else, they must fade upon the memory of the world, and grow more and more dim by the lapse of time. In history, we hope, they will be read of, and recounted, so long as the Bible shall be read; but even granting that they will, their influence cannot be what it heretofore has been. Even then they cannot be so universally known nor so vividly felt as they were by the generation just gone to rest. At the close of that struggle, nearly every adult male had been a participator in some of its scenes. The consequence was that of those scenes, in the form of a husband, a father, a son, or a brother, a living history was to be found in every family – a history bearing the indubitable testimonies of its own authenticity, in the limbs mangled, in the scars of wounds received, in the midst of the very scenes related – a history, too, that could be read and understood alike by all, the wise and the ignorant, the learned and the unlearned. But those histories are gone. They can be read no more forever. They were a fortress of strength; but what invading foreman could never do, the silent artillery of time has done – the leveling of its walls. They are gone. They were a forest of giant oaks; but the all-restless hurricane has swept over them, and left only here and there a lonely trunk, despoiled of its verdure, shorn of its foliage, unshading and unshaded, to murmur in a few more gentle breezes, and to combat with its mutilated limbs a few more ruder storms, then to sink and be no more. They were pillars of the temple of liberty; and now that they have crumbled away that temple must fall unless we, their descendants, supply their places with other pillars, hewn from the solid quarry of sober reason.”
-Abraham Lincoln

M.B. HENRY

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