A Long Perspective

Category: Poems & Photographs

  • Francine in Paris -Day 2

    Paris Three 2010 087Today was a lovely, sunny, coolish day in Paris – just cold enough for some to wear their full-length mink coats and for others to sit outside of a cafe with a bottle of wine on ice.    Not me, I did not even stop for lunch, as I was on a mission:  two museums in one day.

    The Picasso Museum just opened an exhibition Of 240 sculptures and a few ceramics thrown in.   The exhibition is housed in Hotel Sale (accent ague over the E), a work of art in itself which was probably never really a hotel.  Picasso liked to meld the arts together – sculpture, painting, found materials like buttons and bicycle seats, and  ceramics.  He was a larger than life figure with serial mistresses like Rodin.   He started out humbly, then became a political figure (communist), then he became a public figure.  He and Francoise Gilot were often featured in Paris-Match – “La vie fabuleuse de Picasso.”   He preferred the mouvement de la pensees (“movement of thought” ) to the pensee elle-meme, “thought itself.”  The saddest room is a small one composed of  a myriad of blank canvases each with a number on them which represent the 87 works of Picasso stolen by the Nazis and never recovered.  They show the one that was recovered, Portrait de Madame Rosenberg et fille, an early work which demonstrated to me, at least, that he was a master of the traditional portrait. Among other amazing things, he illustrated a text on bullfighting called La Tauromaquia.  What a pleasure to be among the works of this playful, whimsical, innovative artist.  Wow.

    I also made it to the Rodin Museum and gardens, and I ate dinner at Cafe Verlaine in theLatin Quarter Paris Three 2010 104with friends.  More later.

    PS The nude is by Delacroix.

     

  • Francine in Paris – Day 1

    IMG_0164One of the pleasures of travel is meeting folks along the way. On the 9 1/2 hour flight from Seattle to Paris today, I encountered a Brit who investigated UFO sitings for the British department of  Defense.  He flew to Paris to be on a talk show about UFOs.  He said he had never seen a UFO himself, so was it the Russians or something from outer space he wondered.  Naturally, a fan recognized him on the plane and they had a selfie moment of adoration together.  I need to broaden my horizons, so to speak.

    My seatmate, Kathy, had a dual career as a beat cop in Seattle and Santa Monica as well as a stunt woman in the movies.  She started by doing the ski scene stunts for Glenda Jackson in Lost and Found.  Her favorite work was on Magnum PI in Hawaii.  Her only injury was a cracked rib.  In Santa Monica, she hung out with Nick Nolte who she said was an organic gardener and a heck of a nice guy.  Kathy was on her way to ski the Alps with her buddies as she has done for the past 40 years.

    My first problem was that my cell phone said “no service” although I had added an international plan the week before.  I needed to call Scott  to let me into my apartment.  The tourist office at the airport helped me make the call.  However, when I got to the exterior of the apartment building, no one was outside waiting.  Two hours later in the cold, Scott emerged from the building having waited INSIDE the apartment.  With a dead phone I had no way to call him.  So that was frustrating to both of us.  As I discovered when I left, there are four locked doors to this apartment and each is an obstacle with a different method for access.   At one point, I starting knocking on a glass door that I could not figure out.  A woman  emerged from her apartment.  She opened the door angrily. Unable to replicate her success, I called Scott.  Just then a couple  came down the stairs.  Bless them as my French failed me, so I just handed them the phone!  Scott spoke to them in French, and they showed me the techniques to open each side  of the door.  So four doors and six different ways to open them.  At 5 A.M. my time, I went out with my string bag to get groceries near rue Cler.  Then I entered Cafe Rousillion  to eat.  I had a window seat which was far more fun than the fish plat du jour they served me. Ugh. So, I bought a croissant and pain au chocolat at a patisserie on the way back. Ok, I have been up 24 hours straight.  The jet lag strategy is to just stay up when you arrive and stave off sleep as long as possible.  There are 9 hours difference between Seattle amd Paris, I believe.  Even though it is light out, I keep nodding off, so Bon Soir.  C’est la vie!

  • Sr. Antoinette at the Monastery

    Paris Two 2010 183Now is her quiet season

    all the contemplation

    a meditation within

    all turned inward, a divina lectio.

     

    She said, everything we do

    must be spiritual, bloom with intention,

    a deepening of the spirit, the

    singing of the psalms, the reading of

    the scripture, so that when work

    ceases, the nurturing continues,

    ripening in the secret crevices of the soul.

    A plant deepens its roots

    develops the tiny buds that will

    bloom later. So you, too,

    in that hour, come

    into yourself.

     

    I will write you a note,

    slip it under your closed door, certain

    that your hand will grasp it, your

    eyes will read it, your heart will keep

    me in the prayerful spaces of your being

    until our hands clasp again

    and then, oh yes,

    what rejoicing!

     

    FEWalls

  • At the Nursing Home

    Paris Two 2010 055As I walk in,

    a woman straightens the chair on the patio outside her room.

    Her Easter lily, parched, sits untended, one bloom left.

    As I pass she says, I’m nuts, and blows me kisses,

    her fingers touching her lips and the empty space between us.

     

    One aide plays “string the pearls” with five women,

    then plays “follow the leader”

    and leads them off for rest time.

    Each woman has a place at the table

    and a room of her own.

     

    In one room, ceramic dolls

    in elegant kimonos bow

    in a silent dance.

     

    Into Louise’s room walks a stranger

    saying, where’s my false teeth,”

    sure she left them here.

     

    The rhodies by Louise’s window

    at the peak of their exuberance

    bloom red and sturdy, as if

    they will never droop

    or leave the walkway carpeted with softness.

     

    An aide comes to her room,

    hands white with rubber gloves.

    She puts her arm around Louise,

    turns her away from me, and chats about the weather

    as I slip away.

     

    I was never there.

     

    FEWalls

  • For Encouragement

    IMG_0365I send you my daughter

    who could not be

    her body magical as fog

    rising in wisps among the grasses

    playing dress-up

    laughing

    wrapping herself in parachute silk

    dancing free

    in the hills of cedar

     

    FEWalls