From France

A three-part postcard.

Avignon

(9th of November, 2024)

Southern France sings softly of imperium;
A smoother voice of older stone invites you:
Wonder at the architects of atriums.
Constantinople, Rome and Avignon, where
Popes stood side by side with future paladins,
As stone by stone, the palace, pont and abbeys
Rose in solid, restful walls, in step with hymns,
And Avignon -- so Romanesque -- now slumbers,
The host but for a time of western Fathers.

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Normandy

(13th of November, 2024)

Amidmost of the northern Autumn,
My wife and I took windswept roads to Rennes,
In Normandy, where once the Vikings brought
Their frosty steel and raging fire, when
The Benedictine monks did wait upon
The beck and call of ancient, awesome beings.
Indeed, archangels battled here for Bride,
And now an abbey on a rock, not far
Across the waters of the rising tide,
Tells of the triumph of Saint Michel's star.

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Versailles

(20th of November, 2024)

The statues golden, shining;
The sun bestows a shower.
The stony maiden standing;
The frogs around, her flower.
The rusty leaves are spinning
In a frigid eastern wind;
The leafy lane we're treading
Will soon be black and grim.
The world of marble, solid,
Its swirling colours, royal,
Tells tales high and horrid,
Of those loyal and disloyal.