A Poem of Villeneuve St Georges (for M–C) by Mbella Sonne Dipoko

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I am tempted to think of you

Now that I have grown old

And date my sadness

To the madness of your love.

All those flowers you hung

On my gate

All those flowers the wind blew

On the snow!

Why must I remember them now

And recall you calling me

Like a screech-owl

While I watched you

Through the window-pane

And the moon was over the Seine

And Africa was far away

And you were calling

And then crying

In the snow of exile

And the neighbour’s dog barking as if bored

By the excesses of your tenderness?

When I came down for you

And opened the gate

Cursing the cold of your land

You always went and stood

Under the poplars of the river Yerres

At the bottom of the garden

Silently watching its Seine-bound waters;

And the moon might take to the clouds

Casting a vast shadow

That sometimes seemed to reach our hearts.

And then following me upstairs

You stopped a while on the balcony

As high as which the vines of the garden grew

With those grapes which had survived

The end of the summer

You picked a few grapes

Which we ate.

I remember their taste

Which was that of our kisses.

And then in the room

You in such a hurry to undress

And you always brought

A white and a black candle which you lit.

Their flames were the same colour

Of the fire glowing in the grate

And you were no longer white

You were brown

By the light of the fires of love

At midnight