Hilary Davies

Figeac la belle

I remember a marketplace
O Figeac la belle
The bustle and laughter and summer cries
The little, shimmering well.

 
I remember a marketplace
Where we walked arm in arm
Where branches danced and the river danced
And lovers were free from harm.

 
I remember a marketplace
And how we stopped stock still
Over the breeze came music
From a sudden, haunting hill.

 
Over the breeze came music
Five men sat in a row,
Jackets of green and fiddles,
And gold flashed from their bow.

 
Gold flashed from their teeth and eyes
And black from their sleek hair
Up and away from them flew their sound
Into the golden air.

 
They bent their heads together
And their feet tapped the floor
Their smile passed quick as a javelin
As the sound began to soar.

 
They struck the air together
Time and beat were one
The key and chord leapt asunder
On the rarest of patterns spun.

 
As their sound began to soar it went
Into another land
And all the listeners hung on the thread
Thrown by their flashing hands.

 
They bent their heads together
Their feet tapped the floor
Round and round streamed the melodies
Out of the angel store.

The light grew long round the shadows
As the song sprang to and fro
And the lovers danced to hear the sound
Of the players’ brimming bow.

 
In the marketplace at Figeac
Five fiddlers threw wide the door
Our hearts flew up into a golden tree
And sit there evermore.

(first published in Agenda, Anglo-French issue, Vol. 53,  Nos. 1-3, Winter 2019-2020, pp. 170-171)