Le transport

The French have a term to analyze poetry called "le transport", meaning that an excellent poem is one that transports you, taking yourself outside your own body that shivers with delight as the soul escapes it. The soul hops on the métro and rides paround la ville féerique to the tune of cliched accordion music. "Le transport" lifts me beyond this dusty grave of a library where beauty and passion go to die.

My soul is still moving through the city, a golden glowing flaneuse whose light merges with luminescent cafe windows and twinkling Christmas lights still shining in late January. While my eyes only uncover dead thoughts on the yellowing pages of antiquarian books.

The architecture of the BNF library in Paris is a perfect metaphor for academia. It's an iron-clad fortress containing decaying books In perfectly symmetrical rows. The hallways are identical so there is no way of knowing whether you are in the East wing or the West wing unless you pay attention to which one has a coffee counter and which one has coffee machines. The entire mile-long building is underground as if to accomodate the almost blind mole people who can no longer endure the sunlight of the outside world.

There is a square garden in the middle of the building, walled off by a cube of glass, so nobody has to taint themselves by being directly exposed to nature. The boring, manicured green trees and bushes look like parsley garnishes on a particularly bland meal of mashed potatoes and peas.

But at 8pm, closing time, I will join the Parisian carnival. The luminous, frivolous, playground where I, like a child, will swing from bar to bar. Summersalting, spinning, laughing under tafia and mech decorations and undulating art nouveau posters. Only to awaken tomorrow, buried underground.