The first day of spring
lures me, pilgrim-silent
towards Père Lachaise
trailing echoes in stone.
To the world, a cemetery:
cracked saints, tourist sighs.
To me, a sanctum
where dead tongues blaze.
Sculptured tombs
glass-skinned, marble-cold.
Below, old nibs scratch
on vellum of air.
Names whisper from
chalk-dusted classrooms,
glow in browned pages
I once devoured.
Snowy yellow blooms
sway on the green grass,
ghost signatures
refusing earth.
Stoic trees shrug off
winter’s burial shroud.
Bare limbs shiver
into April breath.
Crows brawl – hoarse, black –
claiming tranquillity
above the stilled fire
of Proust, La Fontaine, Wilde.
Before Balzac’s bronzed bust
I confess:
your flame lit my youth
a hundred conflagrations.
Monsieur Goriot strolled
my provincial dawns…
now, the underlined
slips into misty Seine.
Timid, in sharp hush,
I beg:
one thread
of the gold braid.
No flare –
only a blade of wind:
REVISIT.
RECLAIM.
Awed, scorched, I bow:
retreat
from the Garden of Ash
forever revered.
