Notes from La Dordogne

The kitten arrived on the very first evening

as if summoned, and 

being more than happy to be petted by anyone

was christened Floozy

not very French admittedly,

pouffiasse would have been more appropriate.

Nonetheless Bea had found a friend

who would come every day

for favours and attention, but

being a French mademoiselle offered

very little in return.

Later, as Bea finally gave up

and fell asleep in her mother’s lap

we ate fillet and drank claret

thinking life gets no better.

Sunday, a real Sunday

nothing stirs but  the fodder grass,

it’s tall again but not ready for the blade

needing sun as do we.

Only the fractured peal of the Eglise St Martin 

measures out the day’s stumbling progress

with an atheistic clank.

Eagerly awaited holiday books are finally creased,

and mysteries, adventures and romances unfold

as a lazy guilt seeps from our bones, and

we exhale from our routine lives.

It’s early half-light, the day already overcast,

and picked out in the car’s headlights

a weak bulb glows through the baker’s window.

The intoxicating aroma of crusty bread

indelibly France.

The greeting is heartfelt, it’s lunchtime for him

loose change is dropped into

the glass dish on the counter, a bientot!

and an insatiable desire to bite

the end off the baguette before starting the car.

On the drive home, skies clear to pale grey,

I skirt the ancient redundant windmill, that

once would have ground the wheat,

and the pigeonnier sentinel amongst

the dripping vines.

It will be dour today, but

the thought of breakfast bread, ham, melon 

and superb coffee will lift our spirits.

St Emilion, a happy ghetto wedged in the limestone cleft

multicoloured terracotta rooftops 

juxt and cheek by jowl 

spill from the plateau to the cote.

This town is riddled like Emmenthal 

its Gallo-Roman catacombs, now

fill with wine,

a tourist trap nirvana seethes

with many tongues.

But early, before sunrise

a medieval torpor sits in the lanes

and through the alleys

imagined likely bladesreturn boisterous from a masque

.

© Graham Sherwood 06/2019