I was a Blue Rock Thrush that sang outside
the Louvre, for the art made my throat swell
and the Boreal Owl descended well
into night. Bohemian Waxwing bride
flew a trousseau the size of lengthy wide
medieval tapestries. Dotted with miel
were croissants at the long table; the belle
danced under the long windows of Versailles.
We sang a tune, a lyric of her best
versified Monday morning room lightened
by the sun through the olive velvet drapes.
The library met her moments in rest
with long-dead poets and dames to brighten
the dark—lit wax candles, 'neath my landscapes.
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.
