Outside Avignon

by John Byrne

A homely aqueduct, no name, no sign,
No lofty arches like the Pont de Gard,
Low, squat, its cliff-edge end designed
To drop the waterflow, fast and hard

To sixteen waterwheels down below
That powered gristmills for the valley’s grain.
All ruins now, a bare outline, although
The grain persists and I can conjure when

It ground the harvests of the Roman past.
This complex earns but half a Blue Guide phrase
To turn a head, perhaps, while driving fast
From schism popes to Van Gogh’s final phase.

No cars today, nothing to drown the squeals
Of phantom grinding stones and waterwheels.