Oh Train Of Great Speed

I’ve seen enough French New Wave to know
that the roads to Provence are piled high
with the wreckage of burning bourgeois automobiles.
The TGV high-speed locomotive is the quicker option by far.
Faster even than Japan’s famed Shinkansen bullet network.
Sculpted long ago by slow-moving glaciers
the rich rural folds of this fertile landscape
now hurtling past my window at over 500km-an-hour.
Human hands planted the potpourri of lavender fields.
Assembled the sleepy village perches hewn from local stone.
Rustic panorama sung softly into existence by troubadours.
Agricultural patchwork painted into being by Cézanne’s brushstrokes.
A true sense of place for all the senses.
The high-speed TGV locomotive is also the safer option by far.
I mean, think about it for a second; when was
the last time you heard of a cross-channel train catching fire?