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Picpus
By Paul Cameron Brown
The day I went to LaFayette's grave, the
concierge became
our tour guide amid an old
ruin of tombstones including bedraggled
de Tocqueville's crypt (and he, heir
apparant of America, too).
There, too, the odd City of St. Louis tribute
Fayettevilles
after yet another "Saint" Louis, despoiler
of the Jews - both sitting, squat and apparant,
in summer dust, so shingle-flat,
mindful of Place De La Nation, more
blood-letting blocks away (so the aristocracy
might be healed).
A chapel nun then reached in loud
silence for our Lord, her black
habit / upraised hands forming a
brilliant crucifix against sky and altar.
Some francs exchanged hands
(Monsieur le keeper, after all,
obliged us by opening
a private cemetery, après heures),
the graves looked so wretched -
death stylized in military formation,
row on row,
every private carrying a field marshall's
baton only this time of mortality's making,
crestfallen, no Agile Lapin/Moulin Rouge here,
in the joyless, little garden
(not a bird sang),
our old Frenchman narrating/marching
on in The Old Guard, Grand Armée
fashion
a little Napoleonic
his cemetery, his brandy
like his suspender buttons
lost to recent antiquity.
Place des Vosges, Place des Vendomes.
A dish of plaice at the palais
and a royal hippodrome.
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