A Montpeyroux Sonnet

I. Stone Path in Late Twilight

The stone path warms beneath the evening’s breathing,

a quiet heat rises upwards from the ground.

I walk slowly, ruminating about life and death

the way one thinks of weather... shifting, breaking, clearing...

a distant bell unthreading the hour.

Vines lean in to hear.

A swallow arcs above the village well,

its shadow brushing past my cheek. I fear...

But fear is only amplified memory rehearsed,

a story told by bones that learned too young.

Tonight the air is gentler than my first arrival...

with grief still on my tongue.

I taste the dusk, and whisper to the stone:

“The path begins again, though not alone.”

II. A Shadow Walks Beside me

The path begins again, though not alone -

a shadow-self appears.

It rises...dust-like - wind-blown stone,

a second pulse beneath my certainty.

It keeps my pace...knows the names I shed,

ones I whispered only to the night.

It carries every word I left unsaid

and wears them like garments made of light.

Nothing in its face is sharp or grim;

it’s softer than the longing that shaped birth.

It hums tunes I taught to 'him'

who vanished long before I learned my worth.

We walk as two, neither leads nor yields.

The shadow points ahead, toward open fields

III. The Fields Remember

The shadow points ahead, toward open fields

grasses lean in...listeners in contemplation.

Silence unfolds...The earth itself reveals

a pulse beneath the roots, a hidden stair

descending into memory’s warm dark.

I feel it tremble below

a distant echo, a sighed spark,

something old stirring to meet

the self I was before I learned to hide.

The shadow-self grows taller in the light,

as if the sun were choosing it as guide

to lead me past the edges of my sight.

The wind lifts up a name I used to bear.

I step into the field, and feel it there.

IV. What Waits Beneath the Field

I step into the field, and feel it there -

a pulse, a breath, a name I almost knew.

The grasses part, silence takes the air...

a dream dissolving - passing through.

The mist beside me gathers into form...

becomes a woman cloaked in feathered thread.

She lilts a tune that bends the evening warm

and lays a stone where once my shadow bled.

She stands silent, but I recall her voice

from lullabies once sung in my sleep.

She offers me a mirror,

within its depth, the buried roots run deep.

I take the mirror, trembling, and...

the field becomes a house, and I its will.

🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿

🌿 What are Montpeyroux Sonnets

A sequence of linked sonnets by the American poet Marilyn Hacker, written during her time in the village of Montpeyroux, southern France.

Key Features

Each sonnet links to the next, often by repeating a line or phrase, creating a continuous chain.

- Set in a specific place:

Published individually - then linked.