Sestina: Frimaire

I: Cochon (Pig)

II: Mâche (Corn Salad)

III: Chou-fleur (Cauliflower)

IV: Miel (Honey)

V: Genièvre (Juniper)

VI: Pioche (Pickaxe)

VII: Cire (Wax)

VIII: Raifort (Horseradish)

IX: Cèdre (Cedar tree)

X: Sapin (Fir tree)

XI: Chevreuil (Roe Deer)

XII: Ajonc (Gorse)

XIII: Cyprès (Cypress Tree)

XIV: Lierre (Ivy)

XV: Sabine (Savin Juniper)

XVI: Hoyau (Grub-hoe)

XVII: Érable à sucre (Sugar Maple)

XVIII: Bruyère (Heather)




There’s a cloven-hooved print dried into the mud,
and it’s not Pan. They’ve gone topsy-turvy, wrecked
the garden. What if they insisted on staying?
Would it be any better than fly-by-night
Rinsing brain-ridges on a choufleur form
has been called meditative. But the state
of things! Macerated. Is it a statement
if no one listens? One thousand
pairs of boots settle, take up pitchforks, form
a queue. Back at the kitchen basin: wreck
of genièvre, honeyed flowers, a destruction
of macerated plants. ‘Will you be
Camomile calm, to think of staying
here. ‘To Be.’ A woe-rilled, wax-malleable state
held at arm’s-length with canapés. Destruction:
foie gras, olives farcies, michette, moules.
                                                                Pâté de boue.
Open the shutters. This wrecking
light which cuts out each cedar and pine form
strips everything bare. True to form,
nothing but the trees will be
the same. But can gorse balm ease the wreck
of lost faith? And if ‘faith’ was never the state
of one’s disposition? If only earth and mud
are real. Each santon a hand-crafted
pricking tiny barbs from each window. Destruction
of tidy, terraced trees and flower-beds forming
hillside gardens, sangliers reduced to porcelain crèche; mud-
painted hoof-prints of roe deer, wild boar; tableaux
the same year after year. What is there to heal? State
of mind? State of heart? Wrecked faith or wrecked
hope? Or everything precious to hand; naught wrecked
at all. Picasso’s Hibou, Van Gogh’s Cypresses;
at bay in azure, purple, blue. Herbes deconstructed;
garlic, sage, for the feast; lavender for the crucifix form,
olives, milk, honey in the shower, scents staying
on skin, in hair, day to day. Bath salts and
masks; salt of the earth. Stately herbs, racked
and dried. Mud-rich earth, destroyed,
re-built, re-formed. This earth claims us, makes us stay.