Her and Him

(Written before our trip to Normandy. The poetry focuses around the Eiffel Tower, my favorite although cliche spot in Paris. My grandpa fought on the beaches of Normandy up to the liberation of Paris, which is why it held such meaning to me.)

                                                     
10/24
And foreign warmth,

uncomfortable comfort
before metal arches and
flashing kodaks and the jingle of china toys and
popping corks. A mile of metal bridges
scaling the darkness, shading stars with
waves of her own supernovas
as I feel the ancient winds come
from drunken piss-stained banks
and smile
against cold handlebars
and foreign warmth in a shadowed place.

11/5

Her peak reposing
in angel's sheets and
swan feathers, feet
cold and damp, raindrops clinging
to her shoulders and awaiting dawn.

11/12

Sa vue, s'est couchée
par les vents d'un couple
qui marchait, jouait
avec l'amour qui souffle
dans l'espace qu'elle voit.

10/19 - On the bus to Normandy

I have such expectations. But I’m not on this trip with the right people. I want my mom to be with me. She knows how much it touches me. She knows what this means.

This morning, father and blonde-haired young daughter with a blue suitcase in between them, miles and expectation on the girl’s face.

How do you piece together someone from their face?

Last evening, I walked down the gleaming neon-lit cobbled paths, the upper levels pale and concrete and boarded with all the life sitting by synthetic memories below. The people are with loved ones, laughing and finding directions and perusing menus and wallets and photocopied paintings amidst a feeling of complete obliviousness. Is it possible to even walk down a street here and let the stones wobbling one’s feet, the tags of youth, or the ancient washing of colored stones sink their story into one’s conscious? Brilliance has strolled down every rue, His cape sweeping and feathered hat catching every eye. Virtuosity has stayed recluse in cafes and music rooms, feasting on the art that remains that we dub genius. Neither seems to venture far from landmarks and the ashen faded stones that tide over one another in segments of allotted repose, an eternal hostel. Flashes and blinking battery signs and continues poses attempt to capture that which was never asked to be borrowed.

I walked by all of this and feel filled by human voices of all languages, fulfilled by human presence. If you have no one beside you to share a moment, borrow a stranger. Absorb the love they are receiving in that moment, really watch it. The love others give is almost as good as being loved yourself; and I mean that in the base of love, not any commercialized or depicted relationship. We are all comforted knowing someone is being loved, no matter who it is.

Let the sun rise and spread light across tilled fields and red shingled towns and huddled trees that embrace the mountainside. Let my eyes close, but only for a little while.