Like the various textures of the passage
up to the signal tower yesterday—rocky and sharp, muddy, rooty-uneven, loose,
concrete—the passing of time seems to vary in its registers, as in:
Me, in Quillan for three days.
The French-speaking anglo I met
in the Lavaria who lives there. Her English crackled to life as we tried to
work out how to get the dryer going.
The locals, who have always been
there, including the legendary “washerwoman of Quillan” who, according to an
interpretive sign along the Aude, used to anchor and sloped washboard on shore
and beat their laundry to cleanliness, laying it out to dry on the lavender scrubland.
Stone, used first for the
chateaus and towers and castles, later for houses and bridges and tourist
backgrounds.
Hillsides bombed in the quarries,
changing land.
What used to be cars, crushed on
a flatbed outside Quillan.
The Tour de France through any
village cut open at both ends by its highway.
“Nomads” banned from overnight
stops along the river in Couizo.
How long the river takes to
gorge.
Seasons, as noted by the guy in
Quillan oiling the blades of his roto-tiller.
The wound on my head (a scrape
yesterday).
Bank machine: “please wait, your
money is going to come out.”
The schoolkids kicking a ball for
however long they’ll stay in their village.
That moon again, the one was saw
over the Caribbean, debating its fullness, on the beach of Puerto Moreles.
No comments:
Post a Comment