I cannot remember the name of that seacoast city,
but it trembled with summer crowds, flags, and the fair
with the terraces full and very French, determinedly witty,
as perhaps all Europe sat out in the open air
that was speckled and sun-stroked like Monet that summer
with its grey wide beach, ah yes! it is near Dinard,
a town with hyphens, I believe in Normandy
or Brittany, and the tide went far out and the barred
sand was immense. I was inhabiting a postcard.
The breeze was cold, but I did a good watercolour,
and it stands there on the wall. And though it is dated,
time races across its surface but nothing changes
its motion, the tidal flats not clouded, the tiny
figures in the distance, the man walking his dog. Any
stroke and tint have eluded time. Still, it estranges.
Now, so many deaths, nothing short of a massacre
from the wild scythe blindly flailing friends, flowers, and grass,
as the seaside city of graves expands its acre
and the only art left is the preparation of grace.
So, for my Hic Jacet, my own epitaph, "Here lies
D.W. This place is good to die in." It really was.

The Bounty
By Derek Walcott
Page 19