Note—Six years ago on unlucky Friday the 13th the terrorist attack on Paris nightspots teeming with attractive young people including those getting down to a loud American death metal band both shocked the world and set off a controversy over the relative worth of some victims vs. those from swarthier or more remote parts of the world and internet bickering over the propriety of selective grief. On the next Sunday I scribbled a poem before church services which I read to semi-stunned silence. This is the post I put up reflecting on the terror, telling that story, and, of course, the poem.
What
a depressing collection it will
make. So many poems written about war
and terror, murder and stupid death. So much outrage,
pity, sorrow, and confusion. Poems written after the gore and red splatter. Watching the coverage from Paris unfold
on the TV Friday night with waves of
disgust and horror, I swore not again! I have nothing left to say. All my
previous words flayed at the howling darkness and were swept
away with no notice or affect.
Murfin, thy name is futility.
So,
I simply added a commemorative graphic
meme to my Facebook page and
shortly after used that gizmo that
layered the French Tri-Color over my
profile photo. I kept
my council and I grieved.
Then
I found myself scolded and shamed, along with others who had
expressed sorrow and solidarity. And not just from the Right Wing vampires who tried to paint our hands with blood because we had not cheered
and endorsed the pre-emptive murder of millions. I expected
that. No, this sneering scorn was turned on us by allies, some much beloved,
some with Reverend before their names.
Why,
they asked accusingly, did you not decorate your page with the Cedar of
Lebanon for the dead in Beirut just
the day before, or weep for Baghdad the week before that, or the
plane load of Russian tourists
scattered over the Sinai, or the Nairobi university students last
spring? Curiously they failed to add the Doctors Without Borders hospital, refugee camps, or wedding parties blown up by American drones.
For
our sympathy for Paris we were
accused of, at best, hypocrisy and
at worst with a flagrant display white
privilege if not outright racism. When others protested the characterization,
they were charged with the new silencer of displaying White fragility.
Look, I get it. I have written similar things, made similar charges when my self-righteous indignation was in full display, usually just after some ignored outrage. This is a case where all lives certainly matter. Night clubbing young Parisians and satiric journalists are no more worthy than a Lebanese grandmother, or even of a masked militant. All have earned their mourning. All deserve more than just our passing pity.
But denying our particular sorrow is
like telling us we cannot weep for our mothers
because a homeless person has
been laid in a potter’s field un-mourned.
Beirut, Baghdad, and Nairobi
all are written on the hearts of those who love and know them. They are not more worthy Paris. I would be a better man, perhaps, if I knew
those cities as I have known Paris from afar.
I
can’t help it. I know Paris. Not that I
have ever been there or have any realistic hope of ever going
there. I am the most provincial of Americans. I cannot
speak the language and
stumble helplessly over its fluid words
when I encounter them. I have no intimate French friends
or family. But to my surprise, I know the eternal Paris of the imagination.
So,
on Sunday, the Ides of November,
digesting all of this, I sat down to write what I know. It is less a poem than a litany.
Allow
me the grace to grieve for this
without your haughty disapproval.
The Eternal Paris of the Imagination
The Ides of November 2015
Oh the eternal Paris of the
imagination!
of Notre Dame, hunchbacks, and Gypsy girls
of
Cyrano and balconies
of D’Artagnan,
Athos, Aramis, and Porthos.
The Paris of the Bastille, Liberté,
égalité, fraternité
of
mobs, Marat, Robespierre, and tumbling heads,
of
Bonaparte and Imperial bees,
of
Empire waists and décolletage.
The Paris of the barricades and
sewers
of
Jean Val Jean and Javert,
of
Republicans and Monarchists,
of
June Days and Bonaparte the Second.
The Paris of goose stepping
Prussians in spiked helmets
of
the Communards and National Guard,
of
Louise Michel and firing squads,
of
corpses with calloused hands.
The Paris of the Exposition
Universelle and Gustave Eiffel
of
La Belle Epoque, beauty and gaiety,
of
Bernhardt and La Comédie-Française,
of
Mimi and La Boheim.
The Paris of Dreyfus and Zola,
of
Balzac and Jules Verne,
of
Renoir, Monet, and Degas,
of
Le Grande Jatte and Rodin.
The Paris of Lavoisier, Pasture,
and Curie
of the brothers
Montgolfier, Lumière, and Renault,
of daguerreotypes
and other marvels
of Louis Blériot
and monoplanes.
The Paris of the Moulon Rouge and
le Chat Noir,
of
the Can-Can and Apache,
of
the Folies Bergère,
of Collette and
Gigi.
The Paris of the Poilus, blue
overcoats and helmets,
of
the Taxis de la Marne in long lines,
of
Lafayette, we are here,
of
Versailles and the carving of the World.
The Paris of the Moveable Feast
of
expatriates, Stein and Alice B.,
of
Hemingway, Fitzgerald, and Joyce,
of
cubists and surrealists.
The Paris of Chevalier and
Josephine Baker,
of
Quintette du Hot Club de France,
of
Dajango Reinhardt and Stéphane Grappelli,
of
Piaf, the Little Sparrow.
The Paris that Rick and Elsa will
always have,
of
Nazis and collaborators,
of
the Resistance, berets, and submachine guns,
of
Liberation and flowers.
The Paris of Existential angst,
of
Sartre and Anais Nin,
of
an American in Paris,
of Belmondo,
dangling Gauloises, and Bardot.
The Paris of Haute Couture and
Haute Cuisine,
of
Channel and Dior,
of
cafés and bistros,
of
discotheques and punk rock.
The
Paris of DeGaulle and OAS bombs,
of
strikes and marches,
of
festivals and fireworks,
of
flags and fantasy.
Paris of the eternal imagination
let
me weep with you today.
—Patrick
Murfin
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