STATIONS

“Seule la rose

est assez fragile

pour exprimer

l’Eternité…”

by Paul Claudel is this month’s poster poem on the Métro,

and, Paul Claudel, I think, wouldn’t you know it? —

“Only the rose is fragile enough to express Eternity…”

What does “rose” have to do with anything really?

“Red rose, proud rose…” — second-rate, juvenile Yeats.

Even Rilke: that “rose of pure contradiction”

was hardly Rainer at his best. Hell, why not “heart”?

“Only the human heart, is vulnerable enough…”

We’re in a station now, Strasbourg–Saint-Denis,

where young immigrants sell hash, and — so stupid —

crack cocaine, and thinking about it sets me brooding

whether France is becoming too much like home.

“… Only the social contract is precarious enough…”

but thank goodness the doors of my car are closing

because a fierce-looking guy was glaring from the quai

the way it happens in New York though still rarely here.

Next Etienne Marcel, a billboard for an AIDS group,

spouses, parents, sad offspring of the afflicted …

“Only the illusion of well-being is tenuous enough…”

then Les Halles, where teens from the banlieues hang out,

and, if the place were picturesque, you’d say “promenade”

and where I watch a honey-hued, truly ravishing

young woman stalk away from a forlorn younger man—

“Only the pain of a boy scorned by a goddess-like girl…”

Overstatement? Rose with thorn? Who cares?

Châtelet now, and I’m beginning to weary of this,

start to think “rose” might after all not be so bad

when there’s so much to account for.

“Only the rose can stand for…” No, dumb.

Symbolize? Manifest? Embody?… Stop!

End of the line. Everyone up the stairs and goodbye.

Wait, rose, not you. You, ma belle rose, stay here.