A House in the Var

A House in the Var

Plane-trees and alders and pines lean down at precipitous angle

from the scarp enveloping the village eastwards.

In summer their canopy makes the house as cool as a Roman villa

for dreamers on the balcony, in earshot of the river’s

gluttonous way with sucking-stones. Every year we come back

and every year a different light pours out.

Pickles ferment in jars sealed the previous summer,

and summer itself is a lavender smell folded in the sheets.

Children’s voices saraband around the corridors;

those younger selves straining to stay awake on the hammock

beneath the sugar-spill of the Milky Way

and the bats’ echo-guided drop raids on the river’s insect-life.

I could find a line on the phenomenology of the house

and how (according to Gaston Bachelard) dwelling-places dream us.

Here it might just be true, in this house in the Var

dredged up from a Royal Navy assault on Toulon harbour

and demanding occupancy. One more heroic flight

levels out with the wasp’s nest under the eaves and a view of tiles,

though this year we’re scraping salt from the pipes,

caulking the lime plaster cistern, where Jeremiahs have to swim.

Iain Bamforth