Both surrounded by
those floral window-boxes
    of bright spring flowers.
Their white marble slab is not
where his bones are still lying.

    But just to one side,
lost in those tombs' long shadows
    there lies a small pile
of dark, weathered stone that bears
no flower-boxes, no wreaths,

    just one ornament —
a large white notice-board with
    TOMBE ARTHUR RIMBAUD
IN BOLD, PLAIN BLACK CHARACTERS
upon a short wooden stump.

    The sun is blazing
on the town's modern buildings,
    on the other graves.
Only his rough resting-place
lies deep in shadows — without

    a single flower:
all round it, the tall tombs,
    dumb witnesses stunned
by some traffic accident
whose cause cannot be explained.