Sheila Hamilton
Resting Places
Gerda Taro's resting place is the Père Lachaise:
a tomb, a pile of flowers.
But also Andalucia of parched shrubs,
and every other place where she took a photograph.
Each reel of film.
Each and every one of the negatives.
Colette's, too, is the Père Lachaise,
that bone-park of the famous,
and the Palais-Royal,
its colonnades and flowers,
its people shopping elegantly
for perfumes and for bags and for gourmet teas.
As for Rembrandt Bugatti, surely he stretches out with big cats
at the Jardin des Plantes on a near-daily basis.
Leopards. Lions. Sleek dark panthers.
Or he ambles with the gazelles,
gazelles and giraffes, or slowly,
very slowly, with the tortoise.
While the Marais knows well
the sardonic smile of a man
who can only be Fragonard,
those flittery wisps of what remains of his women,
quick glimpse of a lace bonnet as the bonnet's wearer
disappears down a snicket,
hurries into a garden.
The Disused Asylum
Rain has gained ownership
of the window-frames
and what's left of beds.
It feeds pale heads on thin bodies,
also, Orange Grisette, Violet Webcap,
and those other unshakeables,
moss, rust, mildew, damp.
In this ward where imbeciles walked,
and this ward for the insane,
and this ward that was reserved
for the morally defective,
grass grows patchily.
Daisies, dandelions, buttercups poke up,
irregular, through cracks in tiles.
And because there are plants here: creatures.
Bird-chirp, bird-flutter in what's left of the roof
which diminishes yearly
(a gale could finish it).
A chortle of pigeons in corners.
Sudden-ness of bullfinch, bluetit, jackdaw
as each swoops in and, often as quickly, off.
Gerda Taro's resting place is the Père Lachaise:
a tomb, a pile of flowers.
But also Andalucia of parched shrubs,
and every other place where she took a photograph.
Each reel of film.
Each and every one of the negatives.
Colette's, too, is the Père Lachaise,
that bone-park of the famous,
and the Palais-Royal,
its colonnades and flowers,
its people shopping elegantly
for perfumes and for bags and for gourmet teas.
As for Rembrandt Bugatti, surely he stretches out with big cats
at the Jardin des Plantes on a near-daily basis.
Leopards. Lions. Sleek dark panthers.
Or he ambles with the gazelles,
gazelles and giraffes, or slowly,
very slowly, with the tortoise.
While the Marais knows well
the sardonic smile of a man
who can only be Fragonard,
those flittery wisps of what remains of his women,
quick glimpse of a lace bonnet as the bonnet's wearer
disappears down a snicket,
hurries into a garden.
The Disused Asylum
Rain has gained ownership
of the window-frames
and what's left of beds.
It feeds pale heads on thin bodies,
also, Orange Grisette, Violet Webcap,
and those other unshakeables,
moss, rust, mildew, damp.
In this ward where imbeciles walked,
and this ward for the insane,
and this ward that was reserved
for the morally defective,
grass grows patchily.
Daisies, dandelions, buttercups poke up,
irregular, through cracks in tiles.
And because there are plants here: creatures.
Bird-chirp, bird-flutter in what's left of the roof
which diminishes yearly
(a gale could finish it).
A chortle of pigeons in corners.
Sudden-ness of bullfinch, bluetit, jackdaw
as each swoops in and, often as quickly, off.
© Copyright Sheila Hamilton 2019
Sheila Hamilton's poems have been widely published. A new pamphlet Lotus Moon, With Blossom is poems largely in the voice of Rengetsu, the nineteenth-century Japanese potter, poet and nun, and is available from 4Word Press or directly from the author. A full collection, The Spirit Vaults, came out in 2017 from Green Bottle Press. Sheila Hamilton lives in the northwest of England. This is her fifth appearance in Molly Bloom.