Love Song for France

(Inspired by Leonard’s Cohen’s eponymous prose piece)

Why I Love France

The heat in the morning, the click of rigging and the rustle of  

of sailing boats setting out for Africa: a long old journey

The wash of the tide against the staithes

Spreading out the seaweed yet again. And again

Francine and Joe waiting in the shadows to walk into my story

Pere Goriot walking arm in arm with Jean Valjean

Alongside Jean Sablon and Simone de Beauvoir.

The padding of my sandalled feet matched by the click of jackboots

And the hollow calls of Jean Moulin

Church celebrating the sea breathes smoke and scent

Seagulls, cormorants; a man counting untypical ducks,

their ducklings ticking along behind.

Boys - a whole day to play with -  swoop into the sea on a tripwire.

Pink sunset catching the tall buildings in relief

Rose red moon rises yet again over…

Moliere, Robespierre, Desmoulins, Beaudelaire, Maupassant

Inspiring revolutionaries and English poets.

Then there is Paris, dusty elegance in straight lines

Bateaux mouches cruise the slumberous Seine  

Markets like still-lives illustrating a world of plenty

Men in overalls drink cognac with their morning coffee,

Music and chatter leak out of riverside cafes and

songs gargled with laughter spill across the cobbles

towards paintings lined up against the stone walls of a church

A woman in a black dress pocked with fragrant lavender seeds

tips her ear to the voices of Americans who

have danced in this favoured city.

France is world of veils and shadows, pregnant with story.

Afternote: Francine and Joe walked into my novel Writing at the Maison Bleue. W

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