Light in saffron
A July scene from the banks of the Seine (waiting for the night train South).
Seine at boiling sunset.
Flat barge rammed with revellers
manoeuvers inelegantly
around the Ile St Louis.
.
Crud drifts downstream.
In air, in water, in sound.
The waves bounce
to invasive salsa.
.
They’re likely dancing,
some of the transients,
even Parisians,
down by the moorings.
.
This, all this,
turning to dust,
faster, in the heat.
Maxim’s the boat
sails by to this thought.
Gigi and that Paris:
the preserve now,
purely,
of airport souvenirs.
.
The Haussmanian homes
breathe empty.
Their souls are in Biarritz,
Lake Geneva, Lake Victoria…
The riverside rich don’t linger,
in Paris, in July.
.
All is filth.
All of us.
There is ruin
in our wake.
.
Here I am.
Part of it.
It’s not ugly.
And who else
and where else
could I ever be?
-
I was struck by the contrast between "All is filth. All of us." and the quiet acceptance of "Here I am. Part of it." Instead of trying to rescue the scene from its imperfections, the poem seems to find honesty by belonging to it. That ending felt unexpectedly peaceful to me—as though beauty survives not because the world is clean, but because we choose to remain present within it.
I feel transported to a historical scene where beauty and filth live side by side. In a world much older with enormous history conjoined.