Leaving Arles

JAMES MARTIN

LEAVING ARLES

We pack the car to leave this purple light,

Red, red-black, and blue; the walls

And town reflect from here a coarse and grainy light.

The buildings flash and burn themselves against

The foreign sun. By five, the plaster tones

Are cold and shed the shapes of light.

We watch a random face. We talk and walk

Unhurriedly, as travellers do, and seem to know our place.

The metal of an engine rubs and life goes on in red.

Under leaves and under doors the shadows gather

Strength, as buildings blur their brick. We check the bill

Too carefully, and watch the sun recede. This town

Has bothered us. We're poorer than we seem.

Arles, a sign reflects. Arles, France.

We seek the route marked Nord.

Beyond a bridge, the noises heard are simply

Cars in stride, crimson-hooded Citroens cruising

Frankish streets. And farther off, the streets

Themselves become the forms, and then

The forms dissolve. The only sound that's coming now

Is from the burning roofs, if that is sound at all:

Light reflected into sound within

The listener's eye. And then our talk

Resumes. I learned today, from travel news,

This is a common thing: the character of light

In Arles is not from Greece or Spain.

The blacks and blues are painted glass;

The red is heated slate. I still could print

The way the walls had seemed to flame and grate.

A private edge which bore my eye incessantly,

And heat which rubbed it in. We left

The town untouched. They had their lives, and we

Accepted what they gave: the one-way streets,

The church, the views, and had to leave

The rest. The forms of lives from distances,

In place of local news. Our lives were none

Of theirs. Tourists, in the trap of travelling,

We journeyed on: Nord, north,

To longer light and louder voice,

Unpacking bags again. We left the map for good.

The trip was over in July, but we

Have not unpacked. The brown and

Purple light of Arles is still around

Our hands. And they carry more than this:

The last and sometimes secret gifts a traveller

Must declare: a grocer's list,

Some foreign coins, a magazine in French,

The pain of knowing places once, and faces without names.