The Poetry of Work

‘Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy…
What we are asked to do is to love, and this love itself will render both ourselves and our neighbors worthy.’

Thomas Merton

At the end of les Gobelins, yellow daffodils
laugh and fresh fruits gleam
within Pomi Veme.

  The dawn light washes crates of oranges,
and men place the sweetness
into rows like Rothko’s

brushstrokes, before the white
steeple of Eglise Saint-Medard
and the silent gleaming rooster
atop the drying morning.

The Pantheon rises
above the purple clouds,
and the Parisian apartments
bow before the sacred
rests of Zola and Hugo.

‘Librairie les Traversées’.
The green wooden panel
encloses the front window, showcasing
books of wide and wondrous worlds.

The painter paints a
small novel with
unfolding wings,
like angels on the glass.

Perhaps books are angels.
Flying. Wandering.
Soaring above the open blue plain.

For some wind soared within
the scrolls of Kerouac
and beckoned the wings of
Shakespeare’s feather quill.

Perhaps the breaths were
winds that turned the pages,
steadying distant lights
into gleaming fearless eyes.