Aujargues in Mid-Summer

Var Region, France

three-legged cat crouches in the alley

one-eyed horse at pasture

white sun breathes on white stone

green figs cling

to the youth of their branches

resist their gradual purpling

soles of shoes trample yellow plums underfoot

smear of jam on cobblestones

pulsing cicada heartbeat

sick with love, trembling bees

penetrate yawning mouths of orange-red trumpet vine

grape vines huddle in dense rows

at the village’s borders

beside twisted shoulders of olive trees

on the edge of silence, five white horses

docile and soft muzzled

wait in a diagonal line for their summer evening hay

their tearless black globes

long eyelashed, mute,

expectant as the moment before speech

tight villages of stone spiral into themselves

crawl up the hills like grey snails

earth swallows them back with a ravenous greenery

soot-soaked plaster peels off walls

laundry hangs stiffly on roped lines

a wiry woman eats cigarettes, leaning over her balcony

finches take refuge in flowering laurel

scatter magenta petals with their dun-feathered wings

mourning doves chant beneath motorcycle engine growls

the remnants of wine lingers

as amber syrup at the base of a stemmed glass

near the sink at sunrise

apricots ripen in a ceramic bowl

sunlight sieves

through the cracks of shutters

not yet reaching closed eyes

naked feet evade each other beneath thin sheets

a fan blows across the un-awakened, tiled room a mother finds solitude at dawn the relief of birdsong through a screenless window tisane that tastes of silent sunrise

a café table in a village courtyard cigarette ash and lipstick-stained coffee cups

sprinkled with spare change

tanned elderly men, shriveled-faced, huddle and argue

throw pétanque balls in dusty town squares

near abandoned lavoirs

bright graffiti mars an abandoned stone shack

of a forgotten shepherd, long dead,

in a field yellowed with wildflowers

neolithic crags of limestone protrude

from ancient, underground caves

traces of romans scattered among sun-ripened meadows

children sprint and screech, tag each other, run in circles

around marble memorials with their etched names, their solemn lists

of sons and brothers relinquished to wars

sharp-arced swallows swoop and glide

startled at the echoed clangs of Sunday morning bells

calling a few lonely widows to their empty stone wombs

tall walls of poplar and cedar

whipped by wind along roadsides

at the Rhone’s edge

density of insects purr and rattle

while the ferocity of sunlight grinds

the orange off concave rooftiles

dry, blue hills in the distance

slim-leaved, silver groveling olive trees, like hunched sentries

mark the rows of low-bowing vineyards, heavy with grape

after morning tears, a boy with scabbed knees

chases cats among narrow village lanes

throws sticks at geckos hiding in the wall’s crevices

a family of three

trudges up a village path

in noon’s vibrating white heat

the obligation of four hands clasped in two knots

gnarled, linked like knobs of tree trunks

scalps sweating beneath hats, at napes of necks

shoes kick up red dust, shoulders droop

under the relentless, unblinking stare

of the sun