Fifty Years On: for Bastille Day
The East was rent with sabor strokes
that bled a ruddy hue-
angry welts that opened up
to let the sun pass through.
Did we, the folk who lined the rue
or watched from upper stories
discern in this the birth of some
extra-ordinary glory?
It was the month of vintages
when tender grapes are thrown
into the hefty press and crushed
beneath the cruel stone,
give their juices to the sluice
and finding clarity
get racked in flasks and later tapped
to make a baron merry.
So still it was, the loud and dumb
had since reversed their roles
An awful quiet thrilled the scene
and filled repose with oh's
So loud and dumb, so right and wrong-
the murmured claims of some:
But I, from there, at any rate
could hear the tumbril come
a ways before it came in view-
the double clop of hooves
got shot from walls and window pane
and slung from shanty roofs.
The air of Vendemiare was clear
The lanes were morning-brumey
then by an angle in the road
we saw the party clearly.
Up, up the shallow hill
the lugsy tumbril came
till underneath my windowsill
but several meters down
I saw the figure of the queen-
Marie, the widow Capet:
the cap that bound her hair gone gray
of broadest kitchen-spun.
The axles creaked beneath her weight
the wheels turned slowly 'round
The oxen with delight did tote
a lighter load than grain.
The harness sang a merry ronde:
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poem by Morgan Michaels
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