At Laparade

The place where I live is called the Pays du Confluent, the region where the river Lot joins the Garonne. This morning we went to a one of the villages along the Lot to buy a sink, and came back via Laparade, a fortified settlement, similar to dozens in the area, built some time in the 13th century. One of the things I like so much about this part of the world, it’s pretty, peaceful, and nobody visits it.

At Laparade

Up high behind the stone
of rampart walls
of what was stronghold
a baron’s place of fertile plain

we look down the valley
to the Lot.
Not Camelot
not fairy-built and peopled

but fed with blood and bone
of countless wars,
this place, placid now
where silence rings in swallow-song,
not steel and dying screams,

and the sun beats down
on harvesting and harvested,
on green and growing,
on woodland, river-winding,
the mirror,
I look down,
not breaking.