The Facebook profile image posted in solidarity with Paris after the 2015 attacks and mass murders. I was accused of being Euro-centric and possibly racist for not expressing equal grief and outrage for recent atrocities in Lebanon and Baghdad. Perhaps, but those places and people, however deserving, had not dwelt in my mind for so long or so deeply.
Note—Nine 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 at Tree of Life UU Congregation in McHenry, Illinois which I read to semi-stunned silence. This is the poem reflecting on the terror. The 2024 Paris Olympics recall that day and poem.
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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