The Mayor That Was Me

So - WHO WAS I?

My previous life was an Occitan poet who became the mayor in the village near Narbonne where he had lived all his life.
  A poet and a writer and a socialist . . . just like me!
  I saw his picture hanging up in the local town hall.  He didn't look like me but I maybe his quizzical impression resembled mine?  I studied and studied his face, he looked a nice, kindly sort of person. 

  I found some copies in libraries of magazines that he had written in but there was very little about him on Internet;  he was not even mentioned on Wikipedia because nobody had written an article about him.

  I would like him to be more remembered; by now I was thinking of him as somebody I knew.  I felt loyal to him.  I'd read his poetry and found it succinct and moving in the Occitan style.

  The Occitan poetry?  Well, "vers libre" it is not.  The Occitan poets took great pride in crafting their work, every syllable was important.  The sentiments when directly translated often appear baldly-stated and naive, but within the context of the style they were subtle, and said more by what they left out than put in.