Thursday, April 5, 2007

heaven on earth, with apologies to St. Francis of Assisi...[part II]


The shutters are thrown open and she glimpses a bright elysian expanse of Père-Lachaise spread out below.
Small stooped figures stroll along the allées between the crowded tombs shaded by ancient trees whose vernal buds are about to burst open in exuberant observance.
Celestial statuary soars in full melancholic glory... glory everlasting...
She luxuriates in the warmth of the moment, intoxicating beyond relief...

"I often go to Paris to live yesterday tomorrow... because Paris is a place of dreams..."*

The air thins out...

"There's no doubt... in Paris yeah!... There's a girl I dream of seeing everywhere... This way, that way... up against the walls... Voices scream a map of feelings... Everybody loves a Paris lost somehow..."**

Afterwards, subsiding in a blazing state of lightness, a white sheet flutters outside the window, sighing surrender... signing love enacted up on high, where doves aspire...

"Drifting through these landscapes of love... listening to a voice from above... This is a place where you can find... many more of my kind..."**

It is Spring after all, "daughter of Heaven and Earth, coy Spring..." muses Emerson...
Refrains from Malcolm McLaren's "Walking with Satie"* and "Père Lachaise"** intertwine and disperse with predestined abandon into the mood that is Paris...

"And I am walking with Eric Satie... along the boulevards of Paris in the springtime... Un orchestre d'oiseaux every so often breaks this map of feelings... Drifting through these landscapes of love... watching strays from Père Lachaise..."*

[*/** The quoted lyrics are excerpted from "Walking with Satie" and "Père Lachaise", written and performed by Malcolm McLaren on his album "PARIS"]
[copyright 1994, Disques Vogue S.A./World Attractions Ltd.]

"Heaven on Earth, with apologies to St. Francis of Assisi... as blissfully evoked by Mme. V" by g. verster, 2004