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 Diary Notes: Lament at Dawn A Year Ago and yet now No Change
				                             
………………………………………..…at the heart of the chef lieu township
ten-ton buses throb empty
…………………………………….their drivers slumped in the heat
….behind their steering wheels listening to their favourite stations 
………hot full of drowsy hissed talk on the pregnancy of pop stars
at junctions…overhead drives…bridges…roundabouts….crossroads
…..you see mothers with shopping bags dragging woeful tearful 
………………..toddlers waiting at traffic lights where no traffic waits
the air disgorges itself of fumes
………………….and no birds would sing to a deserted plain 
……..at the academy building where garden warblers vied with larks
aspiring choruses at street operas
…………..only the abandoned rickety scaffolding drip with stale paint
(since the staid Academy preens itself with fresh paint face-lift)
the Great Tit so insistent in her quest
…….driven away with late June cracker blasts at midnight
…………has joined some vagrant migrant lot to the Mediterranean mists
only stray magpies quarrel in undertones swearing cursing scraping the mind
……..pigeons and turtle doves forage along pathways mocking foot-falling steps			 
…the route round the back of the Prefecture for a year now is closed to the public
……..(there at the mall end this year a fountain spouts from under the beaten-down rushes and showers on itself into the lake : the Canada geese and swan no longer dry themselves on the bank along the cemented gated walk)

………..a reminder to the Charlie Hebdo ISIS fiasco
and the joggers take to the thoroughfare in their tell-tale whallop-y shorts
…….at the kinder-gartens lone working mothers hang out with texting iPhones for the evening bell

the beggars…..all……gone to sun themselves (yes…this's cruel) on the Riviera
…….leaving four wizened figures (now there's only the dazed recalcitrant Pole) long un-paying residents by the law faculty mounds
seated next to next on the sidewalk stone bridge barrier in their unwashed best……………exchanging unkempt bearded memories
……….like the kids they may have been at tenement blocks on an abandoned culvert…………..without bikes nor toys

…………the skies cloud over and dissipate without complaint
now and then Atlantic winds bring news of thunder
…………………………………………………and have us short-changed
……the last we heard was the early morning 5.20 metro pull out of its shed 

at the drug-and-grocery stores….supermarkets…..only the migrant lot meet to chat
…………..the Mall stays chockfull of lush-green girls dressed in their mothers' best
…………………..looking for a fix
…..the queues thin at the chemist's
…………………………………………………security guards tire of looking into bags
……..their migrant conniving smiles tell-tale some privately-stached thought
perhaps at some chance encounter or at some pungent lascivious repartee

……the Maghreb-ian neighbours still won't give up their heedless tapage 
……….you can even hear their gasping breath on creaking boards and floors while their adeptly trained children drop at all hours of the day or night bags of marbles to keep time with their high Tutsi booted hops
 
(only this year again they deliberately let their toilet spill and seep under the parquet boards to flood your cramped book-lined quarters and the basement caves
all for the irrepressible merriment of the local authorities bent on evicting you at last)

those who come and go at the entrance still spy on the locks and keyholes of your battered door……..theirs to pick and click at will
………..waiting to tell the gardienne or some official still on vacation
       
the usual figures flit through the early light to dig into the rubbish bins with bare hands
…………..lepers of our remains
………………………………………………….where do they bunk
………………in what mountain hold or time
silently busy…….not-caring                   
…………………………………………………what the world might think
								
© T. Wignesan - Paris, August 24, 2017, updated August 18, 2018
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