W. Roger Carlisle
Flaneur. The Stroller in Paris
In Paris I am constantly challenged by the light,
it leads me, awakens me to patterns, textures, colors, sounds;
teaches me how to understand the city, forces me to think about
how invisible forces came to make it what it is,
how living here could change my life.
Strolling is a goal-less pursuit, never the fastest way to somewhere,
though for some it has evolved into a purposeful art: becoming
a sidewalk botanist. Chestnut trees, oak trees, cherry trees, plane trees,
the city’s formal gardens create an inner calmness.
I eat at an outdoor cafe, with a view of
the Eiffel Tower. I’m content to admire
it from afar, be soothed by its architectural
symmetry, disrupting the flow of time.
The concept of hours evaporates,
streets become ribbons of light stretched around
the corners and hills of Montmartre where I lost
something from my past when time stood still.
I imagine a time when I never doubted
myself, I see my five year old self running down the
street, waving his arms, yelling with glee,
thinking only of play.
I hear the pounding pulse of the walkers, the hollow
clack of pétanque balls in a park, a Spanish tenor singing opera;
I see Sacré-Coeur rising in the distance like Oz,
seas of neighborhoods bleeding new life into rectangles
of noisy children skipping to school, women with shopping bags
full of vegetables and baguettes, ragged street children imprinting
Paris by knowing the city inside out.
While strolling without a destination, I become hypnotized
by the flickering reflections in the river below.
The Seine becomes my spirit, placid and giving,
green-gray and angry, blue-silver and inviting,
I learn to synchronize myself with its whims.
I see strangers talking to one another, making each other laugh,
crinkling with pleasure, flashing with anger, becoming
bold of gesture, flirting stylishly, debating traditions of laicite and
revolution, sparking wittily, yelling
exuberantly at one another.
Shelves of cheeses at the Fromager Chataigner
lure me from the sidewalk; I see an old woman
making small talk with the proprietor as I point to a block of cheese
decorated with sprigs of lavender, wrapped in paper
with a blue-and-white line drawing of a French cow, a bow atop her head,
a flower underfoot.
I leave my worried self behind, see brilliance in the morning clouds,
mother ducks teaching their ducklings, a bald man sharing lunch with sparrows,
lovers gazing in a trance, the miracle of the ordinary.
I write a poem with my feet.
Other work by W. Roger Carlisle