Puccini and Sunflowers

Do you remember La Tuilliere

the old winery farmhouse

at the end of that lane

bordering the ruined church

in the hamlet of St Nazaire?

 

We would arrive for each summer’s lease

eagerly anticipating which crops

had been sown and where,

the vines, always situated to the south of course

then clockwise, sunflowers, maize and cattle grass

rotated every year,

whilst we all secretly hoped

the beautiful golden tournesols

would still be bordering the lawn.

 

If you recall

I had been told that first year

by a local vigneron

that Dame Kiri Te Kanawa

had a house nearby

and that he tended her vines, made her wine.

 

Although situated on a hill

overlooking La Tuilliere

her house was well shielded by trees,

the swimming pool water, mirror-like

glinting through the branches and

after dark lights were turned on

and we mused what she would be eating

that evening for dinner.

 

Sometimes on those magical nights

as the last finger of pastis

swirled in our glasses

we could hear gentle arias

tumbling through the vines

plaintive but soft enough

not to wake the drowsily bowed sunflowers,

we preferring to think it was herself singing

and not a recording being played.

 

Years later,

with you four all grown up, independent

off backpacking, interrailing and the like,

I went back to visit Thierry once again

to take some more of his wine prisoner

catch up, chew le cud! and he told me

that Dame Kiri had sold up

that he had bought her vines

and the enchanting music had gone away

 

 

© Graham Sherwood 09/2018