At Mohammed Zerktouni
The heat in Marrakech had arrived late.
The sudden shock in temperature made her seek for shade under the Jacaranda tree.
A fragile shade,
barely there,
the branches still hesitant, as if the season had caught them unprepared.
Looking up
and
noticing
her eyes were drawn across the boulevard.
There it stood Art Deco rhythm in faded rose,
rising quietly above
the restlessness of the every day life,
the heat,
the dust.
Once, perhaps,
It looked at early morning French or English,
out to find a baguette in one of the French patisseries
or
going for their coffee,
voices measured,
time unfolding without urgency.
Now the boulevard was filled with cars
pressing forward,
horns breaking the air,
engines layering over engines,
a constant that refused to settle.
And still,
the building held its line.
Balconies and windows severely mutilated.
Tasteless metal sliding windows repeating like a steady breath,
shutters guarding what could no longer return,
its symmetry and grandeur untouched however
by the impatience and brutal attacks of modernity.
She watched how it refused to follow.
Not resisting,
not giving in,
simply by remaining.
Dangling somewhere
between the long faded echoes of ‘Le Figaro and The Guardian’
and
the pressure of present day Moroccan traffic that had caught up and rolled over.
And she,
la FlâneuZe,
beneath the tree not yet in season,
felt that same quiet tension,
caught between rhythms,
between worlds,
lingering in a moment.
Not knowing if to let go or to act
La FlâneuZe