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II

You had said when I kidded you? After all I'm not going to be far away? Now you are put to rest?In a place dug and slabbed for you alone As if you were not going to rest for good ?with all the others?

It is a place to a side in the pebble-strewn sidewalk ?against the wall ?your feet to the east ?all the other feet to the south ?As of a general standing to a salute from his army

There was no sight of you ?The golden chocolatish-pink of your casket ?made more glittering the cross? I couldn't guess if you would have wanted the Church's ornament then the feeling of being out-of-place? thoughts of you in a cloud

We talked in suppressed tones? about you of you ?trying to be polite and succeeding among uneasy fellows? here and there some unwanted details slipped in through nervousness ?yet none felt your hand tremble on the racket

You were the master of the court ?as now you mastered your going by the low sleek slate-grained marble? in sharply polished angular correctness ?amidst shy upright cypresses and neatly cut passage ways of chipped stone

We sprinkled your tomb with Church water ?Neither rain nor snow you remember could keep you from finishing your game? Already as we turned in a column the voices now louder in the distance? They were arranging the roughly hewn stone slabs ?before the marble thickened your bed

You may at last be at rest ?with no one to challenge you to a test of strength? your referee's whistle holding its un-disputable silence

You came with the spring ?Now you go in cheery spring ?Your sollicitous voice still lingers in our courts ?You knew us all by name and style at play ?long before we met under your critical gaze


(Jean Franco, born in Morocco of Spanish stock, was an Income Tax Inspector and in his spare-time an International Soccer Referee for France. We often played tennis at the Tennis Club in Fresnes-94.)

©T.Wignesan 1992 April 21, 1992 - [from the collection: back to background material, 1993]
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