No rain for weeks and a dusty side street coils

upwards to the graves. Their marble drawers

mostly full, but some have space to spare while

weeds grow pale in the heat and silence smothers

our steps.

Here the familiar wide, white blind is closed. All

windows shut and potted plants once tended, shrunken

in defeat.

Inside, we know what used to be, which makes this

pilgrimage so strange. A trespass, some might say,

recalling a welcome plate of rousquilles and coffee

bubbling on the range. Gossip and laughter with photos

shared. Nameless knitted dolls and tales of war, of

dreams, and fear for a world splitting at the

seams.

We’d seen how the light had left his eyes long before

our last ‘au revoir’ and she inching in pain towards

their door, but how to know what summer would bring.

A sky of swallows yet too many empty rooms for a

man on his own just ten short steps from that same coiling

street. The blue, boiling sky. The quickest way to say

goodbye.

....

Remembering Henri Valès. Friend and neighbour.

updated by @sally-spedding: 11/26/17 08:53:53PM