Michèle Ring comes from the Ubaye valley, in Haute Provence, fifteen kilometres from Italy. With an aunt in Catania, a grand-mother in Marrakesh, and a family scattered from Provence to Algeria, she is haunted by the South.
Her writing has appeared in various prestigious publications in both French and English. ‘A Taste For Hemlock’ and ‘Sandgames’, her two collections, are published by Salmon Poetry, Ireland under her maiden name, Vassal.
Seeds of sky
on the lime
sea blue
that bleeds
itself into green
pine scent
pressed on my skin.
If I wait long enough
will you scoop me up
will you take the gravel
from my red raw knees
will you serve me
horchata iced
to hide that taste
of sweetened cyanide
I so like
will you listen to the way
I can roll my R’s
and scrape the jotas
out of my tonsils
will you laugh when
I say Guadalajarra
and pomromppompperro?
Boats like pods
suspended
on aquamarine
churches white
as cuttlefish bone
dusk, a stain
of crushed figs
If I wait long enough
will you let me pour you
the coldest beer – muy frìa
will you let me
take the stone
from your shoe
will you let me
wash your hair
will you let me
put a plaster
on your crusader’s wounds
will you let me take you to Catalunya?
If I wait long enough?
Khlii couscous
Tonight I am a sorceress and my Ras el Hanout
is charged like a spell with rose buds and cantharides
and seven is the sacred number I fold
in the stock fragranced with thirty six spices
and I rub with burning hands the steaming grain
in argan oil, rolling it until it separates like seeds
of sand between the fingers of the Sirocco
rolling it until it is fluffy as the spume of clouds
that rise from the steaming sea at Essaouira
and I will dress it like a jewelled dune
on the Fès platter of arabesques on cinnabar
and I will dance whilst carrying it, because my heart
is dancing, for my Lover has returned again
from the cold lands he sometimes inhabits
his heart filled with the melancholy of snow
tonight to warm his eyes and round his belly
I am making a khlii couscous.
The Dancers of Aïn Taya
For my beloved Blanche B.
On your lips, words are lightly pressed like the powdery flutter
of a butterfly’s wing, while in the courtyard, a subtle script
of pointillist shadows and dragonflies, swarms over the black water
undoing itself on the polished margins of a mossy fountain.
You tell me that once, in Queen Ranavalona’s palace, you saw
her exiled companions dancing relentlessly. Night’s heart
was beating to the soporific swing of their hips and laughter
resounded until the hours grew white and you fell asleep, locked
in that stern room of columns in the ghostly company of hooris
as evanescent as the jasmine breeze that rises from the sea
at Aïn Taya. You tell me, you, the widow of a thousand veils,
you tell me of a pink dune, the silken home of sorcerers,
East of Gao, which glows in dawn for all eternity. You tell me
of the silver cross Touaregs carry on their chest, the Teneghelt,
and how it guided them, guided you, through unfolding sands
to the one you loved and you tell me, you’ll always be with me,
as sure as their Southern Star leads the Blue Men, through
the desert, as sure as Queen Ranavalona’s handmaidens
still swirl their ghostly dance in the cold marbled halls
of the Villa aux Fleurs and I want to believe you but again
I drink of the dark fountain and again, I forget.
Mediterranean Cooking
Tonia, in her dark kitchen, most days, made polenta.
She churned impossible amounts of crushed corn,
the soft white flesh of her large arms strangled
by the navy ligature of rolled up nylon sleeves.
On the old cooker civets simmered in wine and blood.
Some days she made ravioles, fettucine or gnocchi
ploughing the dough with her fat fingers,
feeling, cutting, filling, folding, filling, folding.
At seven, the men gathered at the table,
plaster dust in their wiry hair,
and poured black wine into opaque tumblers.
Ashes from yellow cigarettes fell on the oilcloth,
punctuating sentences half-finished half-started.
They ignored her as she served them
the slivered half-moons of mushrooms,
slippery and briny, sharp with coriander,
or tender cushions of ewe’s cheese
in a broth redolent of silver sage.
When she retreated to her pungent kitchen
they called: Tonia, more wine!
Tonia, cheese for the pastas!
TONIA!
Sometimes though, he looked at her,
her husband,
from under his white cap,
his hands raw, cut by stone, scorched by lime.
TONIA!
– Tonia, Tonia, look at you,
you’re a disgrace.
Tonia, you’re letting yourself go.
Tonia, most days
would bring to the table
the golden mortar of the polenta
she knew kept her men together.
Note: This formidable woman from the valley, looked after me during my childhood. Thank goodness, things have evolved since. But gosh, do I miss her cooking!
Poetry in this post: © Michèle Ring
Published with the permission of Michèle Ring