The vines have turned the color of the season —
as red as the wine their grapes will spill.
I peer back up the hillside into the circling sun,
an infinite swath of yellow. Below it surges
Homer’s wine-dark sea, repeatedly, endlessly, effortlessly
spreading. Except the sea is never red in Greece or Italy,
or even in France, where I stand amid a sea of wine-red leaves,
in silence, under the sun, holding back the flood of invaders below.

From the crumbling wall of the vineyard,
I survey the village of Riquewihr in all its medieval splendor,
gorged with tourists like an unfortunate goose
gagging on grain forced down its gullet:
foie gras for the shopkeepers, who crowd the cobbled courtyard
in all its chaos and cacophony.
“Sample a macaroon for free under the ramparts.”
“Buy a reproduction of a one-of-a-kind watercolor of the bell tower,
built in 1291. (Only 400 Euros for the original),” the artist says.
“Reserve it now for Christmas.”

His stocking cap needs cleaning, I think.
I eye the village fountain, the half-timbered shops, the claustrophobic
stone houses, brightly painted, squeezed into walls like tiny fortresses.
The artist tells me how hard it is to make a living —
the global economy his impenetrable wall, which holds back a flood
of buyers from Germany, China, New York.

I decline his offer to buy and climb the steep hill out of town,
the wine-dark hill of the vineyard.
This is what it means to inherit the world:
to stand apart, high, distant, above the sea
of other tourists, just like yourself, who yearn to stand apart,
just like yourself, laden with bulky guidebooks,
just like yourself, looking for the perfect souvenir, just like yourself,
the one that will sit perfectly on their mantle. Just like yourself,
they seek a memento that will remember for them — remember
all they could have had if only they had had the village to themselves.
If only you had had the village to yourself, to make it your own.

On this sunny afternoon, the village is my own — for a moment,
from a distance, awash in gray-blue shadow. Only the vineyard beams:
isolated, fecund, teeming with dreams; ever gaining on the harvest;
angling closer to the giant wine press that will spew the scarlet juice
at my feet, the earth turned the color of blood.

I resist the urge to pluck a baby cluster of grapes, nestled safely
beneath a leafy wave of this wine-dark sea, these purple berries
springing from the ground: so many earthy bubbles, born to burst.
Le terroir in French: The dirt makes all the difference.

A handful of soil would prove the perfect souvenir, n’est-ce pas?
sitting pretty on my mantle. The dust and debris would blow away
day by day, like ashes spilled from a funerary urn,
the sacred remains of my travels.

Let me be buried, then, in memory of the fertile furrows of Alsace.
Let me push up this hillside, along its ample paths of abundance;
its ripening rows of fruit; its wine-red passageways through leaves
and vines, steep and luminous; the sea of blood yet to be pressed
from the soon-to-be-crimson grapes.

“Does this vast vineyard hold any secret worth journeying halfway
around the world to find?” That is the question I scribble in the dirt.
“Does this village? Does this vision? Does this ancient, failing wall?”
Even if the answer is “No, no, no,” I shall reply, “Yes, yes, yes.”

Yes, let me be buried in Alsatian soil as a lasting souvenir.
Yes, let me lie here, as I stand: free and upright,
lighted by the autumn sun, unchanging, set apart
to revel in the marvel of red blood seeping into the soil.
Yes, let me make this stained patch of dirt my own.

The vines have turned the color of the season —
wine-red, wine-dark, blood-red.
And I have turned the color of the vines,
in silence, under the sun, holding back the flood.

I imagined we’d grow gray together
and take winter sun holidays
somewhere we could warm our bones

cut out coupons from newspapers
stacking up in a jam jar
next to the fruit bowl

you’d rent guidebooks out of the library
and I’d take evening classes
so that I could understand
black tied waiters

you’d find it cute and impressive
and you would hold my hand tightly
during take off

the plan was that we’d walk around
foreign supermarkets and guess
the contents of the cans

they’d be faded beach towels
and the sticky scent of tanning lotion

our antiquated skin would burn easily
if we didn't smother it

but I’m not sure it matters
anymore, fretting over factors

we already have tumors
growing like doubts in our chests

we have nurtured them,
tended to their hungers and thirst
until we have none of
our own

I'm slowly learning how to stop letting my fear get in the way of my happiness,
Not letting the past affect my opinion of the woman I am today.

Strong, Passionate, Resilient.

And not letting others validate who I am now or where I am going.

I no longer follow anyone else rules or guidebooks to live my life, my choices, mistakes and successes are mine to grieve, fix or celebrate.

So I'm letting go of the fear that controlled my vindictive behavior, and I'm embracing the woman I am and aspire to be.

Halfway up the stairs to the bone-white, beehive Basilica of Sacre-Coeur, I lost count of my climb. My legs remembered every trembling step, but they could no longer do the math  On the vast portico, swarming with earnest worker bees, guidebooks in hand, I turned to take in the triumphalist, panoramic view of smog-shrouded Paris -- a vision marred by the massive carbon boot print of 11 million Parisians. As my stomach snarled from my meager morning meal, I searched for a place to eat my equally meager lunch.Soon, I spied a bench wide enough for three people, but with only one occupant, an old Frenchman, blind from childhood. As I watched the tourist crowds run amok, careering into one another, I  asked if I could sit down beside him, and we struck up a conversation in French. Affable, intelligent, alert as a bird among cats, he was reading a braille biography of Marie Antoinette. I was impressed. He then told me how as a result of an untreatable eye disease, he had had his optic nerves cut as a boy. It was a drastic treatment,  to be sure, but common at the time. Now, he said, his life nearly over, he seriously contemplated suicide, plagued by the meaningless daily routine of a visit to Sacre Coeur, where he rested, a fixture unseen by the unsettling crowds. He could find no other purpose. So, thinking myself a therapist to the world, I leaned in close and remarked, "There is always hope." "Why do you say this?" "Because God exists." "Ah, God exists," he retorted in a half question, half scoff. Below, the carousel's calliope played a delightful, dancing tune. He listened intently. After that, we sat silently side by side for several minutes, he hearing the shuffling feet, I watching the mobs of visitors overrun the balcony. We never spoke again, until it was time for me to enter the basilica. We  exchanged "adieux," and I walked away. To this day, I  wonder what the blind man heard, among the noisome crowds, on his lonely bench at the base of the beehive Sacre-Coeur.

I imagined we’d grow gray together
and take winter sun holidays
somewhere we could warm our bones

cut out coupons from newspapers
stacking up in a jam jar
next to the fruit bowl

you’d rent guidebooks out of the library
and I’d take evening classes
so that I could understand
black tied waiters

you’d find it cute and impressive
and you would hold my hand tightly
during take off

the plan was that we’d walk around
foreign supermarkets and guess
the contents of the cans

they’d be faded beach towels
and the sticky scent of tanning lotion

our antiquated skin would burn easily
if we didn't smother it

but I’m not sure it matters
anymore, fretting over factors

we already have tumors
growing like doubts in our chests

we have nurtured them,
tended to their hungers and thirst
until we have none of
our own