Ode to Marie

Daffodils,

postcards,

sculptures,

worry stones,

tea cups,

seashells,

paper flowers,

circus scenes,

landscapes,

yellow,

light,

mosaics

she is a collector,

she is patient,

mornings when I find her,

and her bowl of tea,

that soft golden yellow

steaming in her cup,

her small body,

robe,

blue slippers.

her blue eyes dimmed,

looking out as the light paints the apartment

and sky slowly.

Or on Sundays,

after lunch,

the moaning of the coffee brewing,

her in the kitchen,

telling me stories,

brining out our simple black cups,

facing each other at the small table,

the way I watch her eyes as she speaks,

that same blue,

of the ocean in Bretagne,

some vibrant caught color,

that changes,

and shimmers,

and that I can never forget.

For having such small bird eyes, they are the first ones I have ever found,

that truly gleam,

that deep blue that is lavished with light,

like these early mornings in Cesson.

The way when she laughs,

her cheeks take up the space of her eyes,

and she is lost in the smile.

We talk for hours,

she is a good listener,

and patient

to my fumbling French,

and off tune accent

transforming my passion

into understanding.

She speaks slowly,

to everyone, and especially to me,

and her words are small

and ooze like honey dripping off a spoon.

With this she tells me her stories,

by the time our hands have become

a part of the coffee cup,

wrapped around them,

like our hearts,

holding on strong.

She has found a home here,

in an apartment that has a flat wall facing the sunlight, and the sunset,

kept hidden from the city,

from the suburbs of Paris

where she used to work.

It is close enough to an old path,

littered with chestnut shells,

and a series of lakes,

that catch reflections

of black tree branches,

trembling wind,

the entangled light,

opening up to a field and an old farm:

wood and stone leaning on each other in silence.

Places she looses herself in.

She walks to the market on Saturdays,

to share conversations,

to buy spinach,

and apples,

Clementine’s,

old vegetables,

her grandparents used to grow,

like little presents,

she brings them home.

She found this apartment from a vendor

at the market,

so she goes every week-end,

in thanks for her good luck.

She loves the color of blue,

I think from having so much sky when she was little,

and would go for long days walking in the countryside

with her parents.

That ever-changing, throbbing color.

She lives simply,

and she likes to play jazz

when she cooks.

She grew up with a harsh father,

and a need for freedom,

she has always had a strong spirit.

When she was little

instead of washing the dishes,

always slipping out with her book

on the front porch,

at her grandparents house,

I can see her there,

looking out on the emptiness,

the stars,

that always tell that it will be cold tomorrow.

Even now, in afternoons when the sunlight lags around

she goes walking with a book in hand,

knowing which street to cross,

which bumps to avoid,

walking the paths.

Her father once told her she could never have a motorcycle,

one to use to go into the city with her friends,

and one day this old grandfather of one of them,

took her into his garage,

and gave her his old motorcycle,

she came home with it,

and told her father it was hers,

and he could not take it.

She would drive around corners,

and old highways at,

her reckless blue eyes gleaming

as she tells me now.

One of her friends had a château,

and a father that left his son alone in it,

and her and her friends

would have picnics on the property,

when hearing his fathers car rolling up,

hiding in the crevices of the house,

sneaking out

through the forest,

laughing like crazy,

never getting caught.

At 18 she got married,

she believed she was in love,

in love for the rest of her life,

there are pictures of him,

in the faded photo albums,

his curly hair,

their young adventures.

At some point, on summers when for months she would traverse

the French countryside,

she lost him.

She found this apartment.

She is a collector of stories,

of language,

of people,

backpacking from one village to another,

cooking,

talking,

sharing that same ecstasy of

nature, and exhaustion at night.

Meeting village children,

seeing pastures of sheep,

reflections of trees,

misty fading hills,

she is always a part of it.

On the doorstep, there is a blue tile, and a panting of a sun,

she found it somewhere near the border of Spain,

to her it means home,

a memory of walking, some point

when sun and earth and sky

mold into her at night,

this tile that welcomes me home,

as I open the door,

white curtains

and open windows

that paint the apartment golden at dusk.

I breathe in yellow,

and love,

and that warmth

I feel at night as I snuggle against my bed,

perfectly fitting my exhausted body

like two small hands around me.

Her home, her collection,

I love spending hours discovering,

finding her in the afternoon,

on the steps,

reading in the last

square patches of sunlight,

how beautiful she is,

her quiet small body

glowing with that soft burning

serenity she holds,

that I find, in the quiet,

her house,

full of cooking,

jazz, books,

and little stories,

postcards lined up,

and spaces left to fill,

to be painted every morning differently.