Le Pays d’Aude

by Julie Gerrard

September prickles my nose like Perrier.

In the breakup
heartbreak month

break out to France,

fast as lizards measuring walls in Montolieu

                                      where cats rhumba in the roses,

                                      and castled Carcassonne
puffs from the plain like brioche.

                                      "See it, then die," they used to say.

Shackles of sightseeing
slip from our ankles,
we move - water through clear pipe
bubbles push us apart.

                                      The songs of Cabrel
map my pays d’Aude.

Setting sun draws clouds round its shoulders
slow hornets mumble summer’s adieu   adieu

                                      "Leur montrer que j’en suis capable,"

in the days that sparkle like blown glass.

Julie Gerrard received a BA in English from UC Berkeley some time ago, and now lives in Seattle, where she reads, writes, takes classes, does community things and plays in the Ballard Sedentary Sousa Band.

In 2003, she won a Zola award for poetry from the Pacific Northwest Writers' Association, and two of her poems have ridden King County Metro buses (1999 and 2004). At the Port Townsend Writers' Conference, she has studied with C.D. Wright, Forrest Gander, Arthur Sze, Emily Warn and Peter Pereira.