There are villages you reach, climbing the hills,
silences you almost breathe
between the graveyards and the whited walls,
a mass of fup and twine behind the church,
cobwebs of moss and venom in the wells.

In spring it rains for weeks above the square,
pigeons disappear into the haze

and people sit all night in lit cafes
talking about the dead in better times:
the quiet labour soaking up their days,
their unexpected loves, their sudden crimes.

Let everything go unrecorded:
the plane trees, the scattered apples,
...