Paris II

The days go by, are confounded.

Did it rain? Was there sun?

Yves Klein blue on cement brick.

The white light of Paris.

But there’s always

inchworm, inchworm, climbing up the wall…

Sainte Chapelle. Read the story

the stained glass has to tell.

Too bad there’s no sun.

Baguettes, with sesame. Cheeses, wine, salad.

Inchworm, inchworm, climbing up the wall…

Cold at St. Denis (sun paints stones

blue and orange

passing through stained glass).

Capital with cluster of heads.

Still cold.

33 euros too much for a sweat –

if we can find one at 20. And we do.

Up to Cité de l’Architecture for Romanesque casts – closed!

But fine view of Eiffel tower.

Musée de Cluny. Roman baths.

Unicorn tapestries. Card for Nennella.

Catalonian sculpture. Think of Bucci.

Musée d’Orsay. More old friends.

Academic paintings cite the classic painters.

Jacques-Martes. Great staircase.

And Napoleon. The French in love with Napoleon.

Cité des Sciences. Sounds.

Ma, maa, me, mah, so subtle my ear

can’t tell the difference

but the meanings are completely different.

Walking through the park with falling leaves,

chairs, sculptural silver chairs, waiting to be sat on.

Musée de la Musique. Concert through the ages.

Pompidou again. Son et lumieères. The past is past.

Musicians and artists reach out to try something new.

I wonder, maybe it all began with the advent of the train.

We “see” differently. We “hear” differently

Machines. Industrial revolution.

Musée Rodin. Adding rather than subtracting.

Park in Belleville. Like Central Park –

nature (except it’s artificial).

Concert in small church in Belleville.

Music enfolds us, is comfortable.

Search for alleys with workers’ housing.

Like rue Boyer – more or less.

Small lanes behind gates, low houses with tiny gardens.

Appealing. Human scale.

I could live in one of these.

And people-watching. Small-boned Gallic families,

lovely Chinese toddlers, majestic black women, agile Arabs.

Boulevard Richard Lenoir.

Maigret and his world still alive.

The man ordering a glass of beer

 … at 9 o’clock in the morning.

To be continued . . .