Sacré-Coeur

These past two or three weeks and this weekend especially have been hard for me. I am working to manage more relationships than I've ever had the privilege of juggling before. I am working to find my place in an organization and with people who I respect but am struggling to truly understand. I am working to love and care for my close friends while loving and caring for myself. I am working to preserve my optimism while I watch broken politics make broken policies.

This poem is about one of the best moments of my life in one of my favorite places in the world, Paris. I wonder if taking mental vacations can give us as much perspective as real ones. I am in desperate need of a little perspective. As a note to the reader, every line in this poem starts with a different letter of the alphabet, beginning with A.

Alto saxes croon over cello cases
Boldly splayed open like expectant ladies
Crowds have climbed up
Draped now on stairs, statues, and lovers
Engrossed in separating sun from sound
Film and camera steal moments of the late afternoon
Gaping giantess of Sacré-Coeur looks on

Homes rise up like crooked teeth
Ivory piano keys
Jingling stars fall from loose pockets
Kaleidoscopic lenses capture colored flecks of hurry
Lengthening shadows
Millions of glass windows wink back at us
Narrating plucks on his guitar

Orange eye peeks over a jagged horizon
Prayers flow down the stairs and swirl around our ankles
Quiet echoes dance between us
Replaying favorite lyrics on our lips
Secret memories

Troubadours pour the last of their thick melodies
Under the bruising ceiling of night
Violinists slip their bows across
Waiting friends and taxis and stiff drinks
X marks this holy hill, drips down a reverent face
Yellow lights bleed back into purple sky
Zealous worshippers make their way down holding hands

Hoping for a moment in the coming week that makes me as whole as this one did.