The holiday poem

Whenever I go somewhere different, like Abroad, I make notes, keep a journal, but I also try to write poems, maybe a first draft. Then I come home and polish them. Back in 1996 we decided to take a gite in the South of France for our annual holiday, which was usually in July. We picked the property from a Gites de France catalogue, and booked it without knowing the region. Getting there was interesting. We drove down to the Channel Tunnel, then on to the Autoroute and down to the Languedoc. We did it in a single journey, without stopping, which was a bit crazy, but we were younger then, and we took turns driving.

We arrived in a small town called Paraza, not too far from Beziers, and on the bank of the Canal du Midi. It was very hot, and we were exhausted. The property was tiny, and on three floors, without air-conditioning. The toilet and bathroom were down a flight of extremely steep stairs in the basement, bedroom and kitchen on the ground floor, and the lounge upstairs. Half of the roof had been cut away to form a terrasse, which was pleasant in the evenings, but unbearably hot during the day. But it had THAT view over the Canal, which was beautiful. We explored the region, visiting Carcassonne and the Cathar strongholds. I started to learn about the history of the area, and had the first glimmerings of an idea for a novel (of which more later). 

I loved the place. The poem was published in Seven Senses (Diehard, 2000).

Out in the Midi sun

This is the place where fruit truly ripens.
In the shop I buy that dawn’s crop
of what we thought were pale boulders in the field.
The melon’s hard rind’s concentrically cracked
around the stalk’s remnants.
Revealed, the luscious perfumed flesh,
holding the night’s coolness,
has the tang of toffee.

A thousand and more miles from the cool crags
and liquid hillslopes of my grey home
I shade my eyes from a hot heaven sun.

Haze lifts off the heated ground
and builds to clouds
whose tops boil and billow
then float off on a sea-sucked breeze,
pulling in more Med moisture
until two cloud-heads merge
in a kiss of wispy fists.

I’ve half a month of Midi memories;
of rusted ochre gorges;
the dust-green of spiny bushes;
limestone pinnacles, fortressed
against the Inquisition’s prying armies;
of beaches where breasts are pointedly
not noticed;
where colours are all colours
and all shadows are black;
where a roadkill snake,
out from its orchard,
paid the price
for crossing back to Eden.

Bee-eaters buzz the plane-trees
in iridescent bomb-bursts,
and drowning cicadas somersault,
trying to fly through water.
Vineyards work harder in the heat,
transforming light into sweetness,
water into soft wine to warm
the awesome black and starry nights to come.

Copyright © Colin Will 2000