French

For Joseph Gabriel

It could as well have been Danielle Darriuex's

diamond earrings, faceted, resplendent,

shimmering in the goblet of chablis

(all gorgeous squills, all dazzling irridescence,

all fateful portents of the lights to come,

the life to come, Flaubert, Proust, the French for it)

set on the vanity by the maidservant

in attendance, an entrance, a retreat,

muffled across those mythic, antique carpets

which may, may not, have lain at Stendhal's feet,

a girl nineteen, hair bee-hived, deferential,

unobtrusive, there when her mistress rang,

just then, otherwise occupied belowstairs,

out of view, seldom thought of, never dreamt of

(not that we lacked concern, or looked away),

a life, lives, of which we glimpsed little, nothing,

given, stage center, at such vanities,

worshipped by lights, by lenses, soft, French, true,

pressing steadily forward, step by step,

glance by glance (an advance on one thing: grammar),

in that long campaign to seduce the camera,

Danielle Darriuex herself, arrayed in gems.

It could as well have been, in time, that gesture

as she gazed at the mirror propped before her,

fastening, first, one diamond to a lobe,

then the other, with such deliberation,

a dedication so contained, so private,

the attention she paid so fixed, so French,

turning, half-turning, this way, that, front, sideways,

peering into the mirror, peering, peering,

asking the glass to move, be moved, catch fire,

to cry out once, just once: Perfect, o perfect!,

it very nearly equalled, so it seemed,

the pleasure she gave, was to give, when, shortly,

gown smoothed, a hair, two hairs, tucked into place,

earrings secured, waves of light falling from her,

she rose, consenting, finally, to speak,

to coax the language into grammar, syntax,

invent the French, bestow on Fifty-eighth Street,

river to river, one end to the other,

light such as light has not since been bestowed:

murmuring, late, into the telephone

some stunning Oui, the perfect Oui, as though

it were her lover's ear in which she murmured,

which it was (he had called: Come now, I need you),

that one Oxi, merely Oxi, nothing more, Oui;

instructing the maidservant not to wait,

merely to leave a light, she would be late.

My education took place at The Paris

on Fifty-eighth Street, off Fifth Avenue,

its walls pale silver, grey, burgundy seats

tilting back should slight pressure be exerted,

downstairs a lounge where, during intermissions,

demitasse would be sipped from Limoges cups,

poured by young women chirping French, each wearing

blue and white bellboy suits with bellboy caps,

scenes from Watteau, vistas from Fragonard,

spilling across pale silver and grey walls,

tableaux beneath the willows, under elms

no more than faint green traceries, each drama

of flirtation, pursuit, spelled out before us,

maiden, consort, chaperone, garden meetings,

hushed confidences, ladies behind fans

almost swooning with ardor still concealed,

a fluttering of breeze, a splay of sun,

a whippet on a leash studded with garnets,

a swoop of hem, a show of ankle, hay-scents,

a filtering of French light through the leaves,

wherever one turned, half-turned, the perfume,

rich, thick, immensely sweet, of assignations.

Birds braid the startled air with music, flight,

the meadow burns with saxifrage, mint, saffron,

a gelding dreams, from the brush a lone rabbit

sings sweetly in the cadences of rabbit;

the cod cradle the sea, wild grouse build nests

in the tall grass, geese gambol, God is good.

I lived those weeks and months deep in The Paris

on Fifty-eighth Street, off Fifth Avenue.

I am fifteen that winter, not a moment

too soon to have been brought, in that long, slow,

unnecessarily difficult fashion

peculiarly my own, to understand

(approaching it from ignorance, not wisdom)

what it meant, might mean, not to live with French.

Deprived that year, devoid, bereft, one suffered

the fate of all those born to poverty:

one ached, fell mute, limped, made do, lived impaired,

persisted, in no sense, no sense, prevailed.

Even from the sixth row, poor, drenched with darkness,

condemned to sit without the gift of tongues,

a fifteen year-old, blinded by chablis,

by language, gesture (the world seen as gesture,

not duration), by Stendhal's mythic carpet,

by waves of lamplight beating, slowly, dimly,

into those corners yet unmapped, untrammeled,

grew drunk on earrings, whispers, Danielle's Oui.

It could as well have been Gérard Philippe

giving all, more than all, for love, for France

(even, one hoped, one dared to dream, for syntax),

crooning Baudelaire to the dance-hall lovelies

between sets, some point midway from the tango

on one side to the fox trot on the other

(squandered on them?, you ask; not in the least:

nothing spoken in French, that year, was wasted)-

a strange one, never having a dance ticket,

appearing night to night, desiring only

to speak of just one thing: the soul, man's soul,

spending nothing, never buying us drinks-,

girls from the Fourth Arrondisement, that highly

disreputable district on the outskirts

("the wrong side," as the swells in Clichy put it),

squatters' shacks, scrap yards, trash heaps, slaughter houses,

cold, nondescript flats where mobsters holed up

until the heat was off, drank, swore, smoked reefers

bought from boys who patrolled the Arab quarter,

back rooms where the failed suicides could hide,

dim flotsam of junked cars, abandoned lives,

half-lives, railway crossings no longer crossed,

trestles eaten with rust, rain slamming harder

here than elsewhere in Paris, when snow fell,

should snow fall, all day falling, with those certain

vaguely ominous, obscure blue-black tinges

stippled across its underside, forbidding,

night coming down too early, or too deeply,

neither, in such alleys, a prospect longed-for,

a consummation relished, a duration

(the world as gesture, rather than duration?)

"unendurable," as Gérard Philippe sobbed.

That education took place at The Paris

on Fifty-eighth Street, some thirty-six steps

(take the turn, count them) off Fifth Avenue,

that street from which, at fifteen, certain mornings,

clear, impossibly clear, momentous mornings

one's life seemed to wait at the next corner,

the next, the next, shining, welling with promise,

one would swear one could almost smell the Bois,

warmed by the sun lapping the beggars' quarter,

lit, late, by contexts of illumination,

hauntings, exactitudes, exfoliations, .

left burning by the servant for her mistress.

(I shall be late, she told the maid, quite late;

leave a light burning for me, do not wait.

I said unto the lamp: burn not so brightly.

I said unto my life: thou need not wait.)

Gérard crooned Baudelaire, Danielle donned earrings,

the mobsters quit their flats to stroll the parks;

the boulevards grew beautiful with women;

French clear as water issued from their mouths.

(Gérard is gone. Danielle may be ensconced

in a small boutique on the Riviera,

the winters almost kind there, deaf, arthritic,

beating on the steam pipes (more heat!, more heat!),

when seen seen once a week in the high season

advancing on the Villefranche bingo parlor

on the arm of a young man-sleek, quite blond,

wearing two gold necklaces-, her companion,

as beautiful, perhaps, as she had been,

in some former life a cabana boy

to rich Americans at St. Tropez.

When asked what she remembers of those years,

Gérard, the earrings, Stendhal's carpet, Oui,

the France that was, the France that never was,

she rubs her thighs, cries once more: heat!, more heat!,

sighs "Oh, these knees will cause me grief today.")

I am fifteen that year. March at The Paris,

miraculously, dawns mild, scented, clear,

the fruit trees bloom, the buds break into blossom,

Central Park, one block north, looms like the Bois,

crones from the Fourth Arrondisement wear crowns,

tiaras, ride a coach to the masked ball

drawn by serpents and beasts fluent in French,

spouting Ronsard, Villon, disport themselves

as though they were princesses, which they are,

were, may have been, may be, hope still to be

(all of it is possible, lovelies, all:

time, in time, will prove gesture, not duration),

wake the sleepers, entered the darkened suburbs

crying light, light, more light, no end to light

(I spoke unto the lamp: burn not so brightly.

I spoke unto my life: thou need not wait),

enchant the air with singing, with pure song,

dust gold leaf through such winter-matted hair

it takes until late summer to untangle,

arrive, arrive, arrive, no matter where.