Men of the Marais
04.11.2013
It’s still cold in Paris (the longest, darkest, coldest winter in 45 years, we heard) so I’m inside at Café les Philosophes, back to the window, computer open, editing a chapter. It’s not my usual haunt, but it's close to where my evening walk led me.
On the wall across the room: the golden labyrinth collage I love. Surrounding the labyrinth, cut-out newsprint, with words in red: “Je pense, je pense,” and “Je t’aime.”
I take a break for some fresh hot delicious vegetable soup.
A Peruvian-looking man with bronze skin and a humble air, passes in front of me bearing a tray of jasmine leis, tiny white flowers woven with miniature red roses.
He offers them to the single British man to my left.
No, says the man.
Non, say the laughing Japanese girls.
Non, say the French couple.
Non, the matronly Dutch women.
He passes between the labyrinth and a table of four men. The one whose face I can see (I’ll call him the lead man, since he’s ordered the wine and suggested dishes to the others) signals to the flower man that he’d like to see a lei.
He puts it under his nose and breathes deeply, passes it to the younger man across from him.
They pass the lei around, drinking in the scent.
The lead man pays for two leis. The man across from him drapes one around the forehead of the man to his right who looks like a young Jack Kerouac, handsome in a red plaid lumberjack shirt, turning him instantly into a fetching Bacchus.
The image is too delightful to lose. The lead man takes out his camera and snaps a photo.
The tenderness between the men, their aesthetic sensitivity, is wonderful to see.
Emotional closeness: it seems easier between women friends, easier between couples than in friendships between (so-called) straight men.
I look at the collage: je pense, je pense that men could learn so much about male-to-male friendship from these men in the Marais.
(And here's a related post, from 2011, on tenderness in boys, and the great mythical friendship of Castor and Pollux.)
Street art (c) 2013 by Kashink
Reader Comments (10)
What a lovely pensee in your elegant prose.
Merci, Tristine. Thank you for your appreciation.
Much love,
Kaaren (& Richard)
Lovely...Both pieces...lovely!
Thanks, Kaaren.
Thank you, Bruce. We so appreciate your appreciation!
Much love,
Kaaren (& Richard)
While realizing this may shade a bit into ambiguous territory, orientation-wise, certainly Walt is the bard of male tenderness, and human tenderness overall. A compassionate heart wins the day every time. What did Rimbaud say: La charité est cette clef.-- Cette inspiration prouve que j'ai rêvé! (My huge petit Robert tells me "charité" also means compassion...)
WHITMAN
While my wife was massaging my sore
right arm in bed I suddenly
saw the Civil War soldiers in the
hospital Whitman used to visit
and how they didn’t know who he
was or who he would be or
that he’d written Leaves of Grass
but only that he wrote letters home for them
and wiped their brows with cold cloths or
leaned close to them to hear their
whispered words and leaned close with his
sky blue eyes and pink face to
kiss their beards
and gaze long at them and
hold their hands while they
died
__________________________________________________________
8/3/2009 (from Sparks Off the Main Strike, The Ecstatic Exchange, 2010)
Daniel,
This is wonderful. You are so right that no poet ever expressed male tenderness and human tenderness better than Walt Whitman.
Your poem took us into his presence, right there in the hospital where he tended dying men. And yes, I'm sure that most of them did not know who he was. And yet, did.
Much love,
Kaaren (& Richard)
Lovely K. Very lovely. xoxh
Thank you, Holaday. It was a lovely sight to see.
Much love,
Kaaren (& Richard)
Love this entry. So thoughtful and so present. You brought me right there. It makes me want to get on a plane and see you, see Connie and of course, Paris. Miss you and love you as always. Carol
Carolina!
So get on a plane and visit! The weather turned today. It's brilliantly sunny, sky like Southern California. We'd love to see you here.
Merci et bisous.
Much love,
Kaaren (& Richard)