Late Night Bloomer   Bookseller cultivates a night-blooming cereus after hours…

In another nod to coincidence, simultaneity, anniversaries, Sunday, August 29 is the birthday of French prose poet Jean Follian. He would have been107. Follain was born in Canisy, in Normandy in 1903; he died in Paris on March 10, 1971. A powerful influence in my early days of poetry study, Follain’s work was brought back to me while musing about Blanca, one of those quirks of association. What a beautiful birthday present her blooming would make for Monsieur Follain, her flowers  full of the promise of poetry.

Here is a prose poem I opened to at random from his collection, A World Rich in Anniversaries with translations by Mary Feeney and William Matthews

“This plant, so exceptional since its flower never lasts more than a few hours, broke into blossom on a morning the garden’s owners weren’t at home.  With its speckled petals, it bends in the breeze like so many other more common flowers.  There’s a terrible sweetness to everything.  A colony of armored insects, old gold, has moved into a shaded corner.  Nearby, people hurry up and down steps.  A hand stops on the rail of an oaken stairway; every minute falls.  At six in the evening, the flower will be withered, the horizon will begin to grow pale, a group of girls will start to sing with no weakness or shame. “