Enfin

1994 was our first time here

the summer blistered then too

I remember memorizing

the scant directions, the final one

turn left at the ruined piano.

Over the subsequent decade

the decrepit music box disappeared

piece by piece, eventually 

replaced by a hand painted sign 

for pizza at Chez Nelly in the village

Of course we have aged, but

the land has not,

the familiar copse, home for

the coypu and her kits

the line of massive hay rolls

the annual guessing game

sunflowers or corn 

on the palus this year

the perfect mysteriously dense 

boundary around the lawn, ideal for

hide and seek after dark

flashlights snaking, searching,

through the head high stalks

we used to joke a Japanese soldier

lived there, unaware hostilities

had ceased

For the really brave a ghost walk 

to the ruined church and back

no torches allowed.

I remember the hapless 

grass verge arsonist, and

the spade-faced crone, a Gorgon

who stared dolefully

at the kids as we slowed to drive by

both now in the cemetery with

umpteen generations of their kin.

We once brought our children here

now they in turn bring their own

to unearth the many buried memories

for their babies to rediscover

old memories as sharp as tacks

honed and passed on to the next

We are old, this vintage our last,

fierce pétanque tournaments 

that lasted the whole stay

have become usurped by

screens tablets phones et al 

but part of us will 

always be buried here

hiding in the sunflowers

or the corn

*

© Graham R Sherwood 08/22