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| Sunset over Place de la Bastille |
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| Yaseen Khan with me & Sandi |
On the left bank, I met Yaseen Khan, an elegantly dressed Indian poet-philosopher with crisp blue eyes, a shock of white hair hanging over his forehead who spoke to me as if he knew everything about me as I stood translating the poems scrawled on his pen and gouache paintings taped to the iron fence surrounding the Saint-Germain-des-Pres church.
“You know what it means,” he said, pointing, “in your heart.” On the fence near Khan’s work in big letters: “Le Monde est une Poesie” – The world is poetry. I bought a painting for Greg with a bit of verse by the Portuguese writer Fernando Pessoa: “Je t’aime comme L’Amour aimer” – I love you like Love loves.”
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| from la patisserie |
In Paris,
full of sweet and beautiful things.
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| pain au chocolat |
The morning of my birthday
I ate pain au chocolat
the tender silk and crunch I’d been dreaming
as long as there have been stars–
perfect with a Veuve Clicquot.
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| breakfast Veuve Clicquot |
I ordered une coup de champagne
every single Paris day.
My first night, unexpectedly alone,
I sipped glass after glass,
writing in French
as if I was born to sin
in any language.
In Paris, there are poems written for the trees:
“if you have an arbor on your street,
your thoughts will be less difficult
your eyes more free
and you hands more desirous in the night.”
