The alpine meadows are spun with millefleurs
and forests of pine, beech, and poplar rend
all of France fragrant, now nuanced, and send
my poems like tiny birds heavenwards.
Wrought iron slants in afternoon and mars
the manicured green's magic haunt, lend
me the whisper for a moment of a thousand
prayers 'round the property's pristine scars,
the battle wounds have gored the trench:
there are cold gashes in the weathered wood.
Light through old lace at the windows' black frame,
the thunderous sky's tenuous grey drench
down clouds scuttling past--broom-coloured oak stood
on hillsides, a missive of gated fame.
