Somewhere: 28 Rue St. Jacques
Or eating spam fried rice in the courtyard
after kindergarten, and playing cowboys
with Thierry, the kid next-door. We shared toys,
but not comics. Written language was hard
to decipher, unlike the spoken. I
never captured the nuances, and lost
the rest over the years. Today the cost
eludes me, like moths fluttering by. Try
to recall that particular morning light,
how it glanced off the French snow, and the
way our mother smiled at breakfast, no trace
of sadness, yet, the lines marking our heights
rising along the wall, limbs of a tree
we’d never climb, out there, somewhere, in space.
* * *
This was originally drafted during the August 2015 Tupelo Press 30/30 Challenge. I was never satisfied with it, and didn’t see any reason to revise. But those memories are worth sharing!
O at the Edges 
this makes me so nostalgic! Thank you for sharing this.
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Thanks very much!
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Pleasant trip!
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Thank you, John. Ah, memory. I hadn’t thought much about those times, until I wrote the poem.
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A sign of age, I’ve found, as childhood images surface.
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Wonderful sonnet, Bob – and the poignancy of ” and the / way our mother smiled at breakfast, no trace / of sadness, yet,” really caught me!
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Thanks, Lynne. That was such a magical time…
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It’s an intensely atmospheric poem Robert and I’m glad you thought to bring it to your blog. I also notice how you’ve broken free from today’s almost ubiquitous free verse and run with Petrarch’s sonnet form, right through to his rhyme scheme and the English pentameter. Do you remember if you found that inhibiting, or was it strangely liberating? Whichever, I like the result a lot – I think because you’ve pulled off the difficult feat of making the whole thing sound like relaxed natural speech. Three resounding cheers, I say!!!
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Thank you, John. I enjoy the challenge of following the sonnet form, and find the limitations to be anything but inhibiting. The constraints force me to think differently, to use words I’d not otherwise use.
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No doubt a different village, but my house in France was at Numero 6, rue St Jacques, Sigoules
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This was Milly-la-Forêt. Quite the place for a small child!
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