Just a few days in Paris
warm but not so much
to stop us from strolling
well-worn streets
past cafes spilling with people,
the wide boulevards,
continuous traffic,
on to the sidewalks,
eating, laughing, drinking,
such liveliness in every gesture,
the signature of joie de vie,
its sensual lines of boulevards,
cream-colored homes topped with
mansard roofs and arched dormers,
bridges of locked hearts over
the River Seine;
and in the eye of every artist
who wields a brush,
or the poet with her pen,
the philosopher with his thoughts
to help us understand why
today’s blood on stones
mangles a city’s soul
corrodes nothing past or present
like Monet’s Water Lilies
on the walls of a small museum
charting its daily transition on canvas
not far from the rampage of terror and death
changing focus always aware
how each stoke of pigment thrives
in every hour of a day’s journey
wherever light strikes.
Karen Schulte
Central Islip, NY USA
Donated to UUSC-UUA Refugee Crisis Center.
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