Les glâneurs (The gleaners)

Snow came and went in the night
while we like beggars were
under our blankets, untouchable

Cold breath blows from the folded hills
on a village in quarantine, sealed doors,
streets quiet as field-stones

Between bare vine-rows, blue
sky-gates opening to the horizon

The tractor like a fishing boat
towing a wake of hungry gulls

The terroir tightening its belt,
the squirrel on its winter walnut trail

Mistletoe won’t grow in salt air,
preferring the land-locked
banks of the Loire, its white berries
...