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| Colincamps Cemetery near Albert, Picardie, France. Spring 2018 |
"A hundred times a day I remind myself that my inner and outer lives are based on the labors of other people, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure that I have received and am still receiving."
—Albert Einstein: "What I Believe"
In Memoriam Will Smith 1882 - 1916
A flower shop. A young woman
pushes the door open, calls out -
I thought that you were closed!
And I think of the flower shop
near the train station
in Albert. Where I chose
a pot of red roses.
The smiling shopkeeper,
the politesse and conversation -
winter morning, bright with sunshine.
I had just arrived in Paris,
took an early morning train,
changed at Amiens, for Albert.
The florist wrapped the roses
in shiny cellophane, red ribbon.
How could I stop him?
I’d hardly slept, I’d travelled overnight,
I’d only just arrived.
I could not be sure I’d find the place
that I was looking for.
Surprised by sunlight,
for the train passed through a landscape
wrapped in cloud
as if it was a bouquet,
offered as a gift.
Arriving in this small town,
walking from the gare SNCF
the sun burst out of its confining cowl of cloud
and flung open the sky.
My fingers ripped the cellophane,
tore apart the careful curls of ribbon,
in the high wind, in the cemetery.
I pushed the roses deep into the earth,
beside the headstone,
placed there almost a century ago.
In a little English town, months later,
I pass a flower shop
just before the clouds swamp
the streets with rain.
And remember
Picardie, red roses
and the fierce light
lashed to the horizon,
tilting, like a boat at sea.
Morelle Smith
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