Beside the Broad Dordogne

I wake to the sound of water, and think,

"Mother has died and gone to France,"

She is at un autre hôtel, speaking French

better than ever, while I stare at the fog

that has a river in it—the broad Dordogne,

making its river noise, as if all the faucets

have been left on all night. The river

rushing in one direction only, so different

from Blackfish Creek, where the sea floods in

and back, scrubbing the sand both ways.

Well, one travels so things are different.

American actors speak French on TV here.

Last night they showed Accident Catastrophe

about two babies switched in the hospital at birth.

One dies. The parents discover the dead child

was someone else's and their child is alive

in Florida with son père, though sa mère

est morte de some disease, who knows?

Anyway, Ed Asner, who plays the lawyer,

speaks gravelly French, but people have

an American demeanor, they pull their hair

on the edge of violence. Then each family

gives up a piece, and the child ends up more

loved than ever, as if it's inevitable.

Or so the river is telling me

with its one-way simplicity,

like gravity. "Alive in the eternal

heart of France"—that's Mother

I'm thinking about, for some reason,

maybe the journal my wife's been keeping,

so like the daily letters Mother wrote

to sa mère et son père, when her life

was flowing through her like the broad

Dordogne. And where is she now?

Does she wish my father were with her,

one of him alive, and one with her?

A bell is ringing wildly, each of its peals

like a round boat rolling downstream

where the river divides around an island

only to sweep back into itself

somewhere in the fog.