Line Dufour is an artist, writer and poet. She resides by banks of the Jacques Cartier River, in Quebec, Canada, once home to writer and poet Anne Hébert. Her poems have appeared as a chapbook, and in several anthologies, including Solicitations, published by the Literary and Historical Society of Quebec, UT1 Worksheets Vol. 70, and Queen’s Quarterly. She was nominated for the bpNichol poetry award and long listed for the CBC non-fiction short story prize. She received her Masters in Creative Writing from the University of Gloucestershire.
Please visit: www.linedufour.com
I’ve got clouds in my brain. Everywhere I go water has a different song. The sounds of breathing water spray a soft mist. Cool air fingers the feathered and green boughs. Trees form a single file along the riverbed. Opaque clouds are backlit by a pale yellow sun light reaching across to where the sky meets the uprising rock hills. Sun-lit tipped waves. A village tumbles downhill to a church with a venetian bell tower. A horde of wasps buzz frantically, disoriented. A green plain sits at the bottom of the valley bowl, where the mouth of the river inserts itself. Ribbons and threads of all kinds of greens weave themselves across the landscape, while the river wiggles its way in.
Villages are stitched onto the edge of the river. Water delicately trickles its way to the swelling land. The road skirts its way around a mountain and offers a magnificent view of the valley. Mostly, the road stays on the coast, the hem of land’s garment.
I am propositioned by a man on a bicycle while I pedalled with exertion up hill. I’m still wearing a fake wedding ring. I told him I had a husband. That he was a pilot. That I was good Catholic girl and that I couldn’t dream of ever being unfaithful to my husband. Within minutes he took off, much to my relief. What did he expect? That we’d do it in the bush among the brambles?
Where are you?
An old woman dressed in black carries a load of branches and twigs. Her body is gnarled and twisted and bent like an old tree that has fought hard against the wind. Earlier, a similar bundle had been loaded onto to a donkey by two men. She is hunched and bent. Her face bears no complaint, and verges on cheerfulness.
Mountains recede behind each other until they become a diaphanous veil. The auberge I am staying in is on top of a winding road, a steep climb but worth it when I see cactuses and succulents embroider the terrain. The wind is strong and relentless, inflating locals with an inner strength. Their character is not a facade. They have become part of the landscape that succumbs to its blustering gales. The mountains, the wind, reminds each of us of our planetary insignificance.
I am in Ravenna munching on a bag of chips after cycling from Venice. Across this suburban looking patch of land, a circus is set up. A man comes up to me and says hello. He shows me his trailer. This is home, he says. Very nice, very comfortable. Would you like to come in? he asks. No, I reply. Would you like to see the animals, he asks. To that request, I say yes. He tells me he’s Croatian and as we’re walking across a muddy patch of ground the smell of the animals permeates the air. He said he speaks Italian very well. His English is good too. He shows me the white bears and the brown bears and the monkeys, then he asks me for some chips. Sure I say, and I extend the bag. He makes a sign and uses words to explain his hands are too dirty, so I give him a handful. He will also give you a kiss, the man says, pointing to the monkey. No, no no, I don’t want a kiss, but I will give him chips. The man tells me his name is Rakeem, then shows me the lions and the leopards, then the horses. The llamas and two zebras are in the same tent. This little circus reminds me of Noah’s Ark. In another tent are horses I’ve never seen before. They’re spotted. I want to go up and touch them. NO! Rakeem shouts. They are dangerous. They fight. Rakeem invites me into the big tent, where they are making preparations. He tells me I can come to the circus for free tonight. He will let me in.
Where are you?
Its sunny, hot and there’s a slight breeze. Uphill is a struggle, not with the hill, but with myself. The turquoise water turns purple-blue as it recedes towards the horizon, the sun sprinkling thousands of rhinestones on its surface. Cliffs of gold and emerald. La Playa at Tossa Del Mar. The sea has a strong pulse, too strong for me to swim in, but my phantom self swims further and further out to sea and there is no being pulled back to the shores of what we had. Nothing that sleep, silence, quiet, birds singing, a starry night, or the sea, cannot heal.
A sinuous path up a hill where at the top, a well preserved stone city presides, offers an arresting views of the city below. White houses are randomly and tightly sown into the slope against a backdrop of stone walls and circular dungeon constructions, have a view of the sea and cliffs. A stone church, its archivolts still intact and a metal cross, are being eaten away. Some faces stay with me and urge me forward. An old man sitting still. My impatience is mischievous and wants to fly on the wings of time to what I want for my future. I know I will be sorry for not fully being in this present moment and the goodness that I am living daily and I already am.
Orchards, pear and orange trees. Goats trudge via moat to fields. The mountains are white with gold and green diagonals. I stay at an auberge in Benicasim. Outdoor patio. Long beaches. Water is clean. Some parts are sectioned off for gathering mussels. People catching them in sieves. Women sitting in bathing suits cleaning them. I swim, soaked in wonder.
In the darkness, your absence chills me and clouds form a big question mark.
Poetry in this post: © Line Dufour
Published with the permission of Line Dufour