It is still there – the place and the people I spent two months living in and around last year. Of course it is. Agde has been there for two and half thousand years, one of the very oldest towns in France. So why would it not be waiting just as before?
Going back was emotional for all kinds of reasons ( I shed a tear on arrival, on seeing Wendy) – it had been such a creative time, it had been time out, a watershed, a new found freedom, the beginning of a new life – and so I guess I was fearful that it wouldn’t live up to its former promise. I need not have worried, Agde offered all of these propects still, and meeting up with friends Alan and Nira and acquaintances like the lovely lady in the Cafe Capitaine- Thaus – which means peacock in Algerian- only served to reinforce my sense of belonging.
Nothing had changed, except me and I was suddenly very aware how in returning we are inevitably looking from a different place.
This is a second draft of my poem from this year’s visit – I will continue to work on it once I’ve put it away and forgotten it
The Weather In The Streets
A cold wind blows unseasonal rain at my back.
Nothing has changed but the weather in the streets,
this thin clothed June stripped of sun still whispers
in my ear, stirs the foreign tongue, amphorae
pulled from the the mouth of the sea, from the pea-green
Herault precious boody* washed smooth in memory’s drum
past the rub of sea bed silt that breaks piece by
piece the blue glass vase, while above
in this year’s rain geraniums grow tall, blood red
burning against the basalt of before. Nothing has changed
but the mirror I hold to memory’s face, its fragments and
the place I look back from, the pot of last year’s wine.
* Boody is small pieces of collected treasure – shells, glass etc
Fortunately for us Agde is west of Marseille – I was shocked and saddened to hear of the floods and the loss of life further along the coast in Draguignan and the surrounding area, the news was just breaking as I made my way back to England
I love the image of ‘boody’ washed in memory’s drum.
‘The weather in the streets’ sounds like a title. lovely.
K
Yes – a good title – thank you Kathleen. So much work still to do on it – now I’ve read it again – words I can do without – that need taking out – lots more drafts to come I think.
A x
I was moved to tears by this post – its intensity, its perception and the way it adds and adds layers of meaning to what is already there in my own consciousness, my own mind. The subtle combining of images and impressions in the lovely poem distils shared experience into yet another unique perception. I loved ‘waiting like amphorae’…
wx
Thank you Wendy for lovely comments- I like that it distils our shared experience. I miss Agde already but at least the sun is shining here. I’ve made some changes to the poem (including Kathleen’s suggestion for the title )- and I’m sure it will keep changing
A x