Liquid stone

At Castelnaudary, the Canal du Midi opens into le Grand Bassin - rather like the neck of a goose during gavage - before narrowing again, east of the town and heading on to the Mediterranean.
The Marin is the name of the east wind - it blows hard from the sea, channelled by the Black Mountains to the north and the Pyrenees to the South. It hits the Grand Bassin with an intensity which obliged the 19th century engineers to build an island at the throat of the Bassin to act as a buffer. it is lyrically called L'ile de la Cybele. There is a tower on the edge of the Bassin, inhabited by squatters, and these stones frame the door. They have a sense of movement to them which mirrors both the wind and the water.