monday poem #41: Naomi Shihab Nye, "French Movies"
I've been thinking about people I've loved who are out of my life now one way or another.
The last line of this poem may be my single favorite line from any poem ever.
French Movies
1.
Roasted chicken placed on a linen cloth.
In the movie it is still sitting there.
You forgot to eat it. We go outside to find
glass bottles smashed behind our cars.
2.
In some men the future is written
with a definite pen.
He strides out of here,
heading into the future.
You were a page of mist,
hovering. Your voice said
other people's words,
erased its own.
How they explained it:
He was fragile,
couldn't face reality.
One radiant tear in a train station-
even today, all our ages stand still
in your face. It is impossible
to blink.
3.
I wish I could have held on
to your coattails.
We could have stood with the other half-sure ones
near the lighthouse in the tourist town
listening to wave and cloud,
the way no script written there
survives, and who worries about it?
Then when they stood in line to say
this world was not enough, perhaps
you would not be among them.
Knowing that story already,
you could make a different one.
The French critic reminds us
the French like their movies ambiguous.
4.
Here in a country of real estate and sun,
you visit only briefly.
Materialize on the screen,
then whisk away,
leaving us pale shoulders,
slightly balding spot on the back of the skull,
maps to a country which no longer exists.
I wish your coattails had been longer.
If we are not fragile, we don't deserve the world.
- Naomi Shihab Nye
from Yellow Glove
reprinted in Words Under the Words
The last line of this poem may be my single favorite line from any poem ever.
French Movies
1.
Roasted chicken placed on a linen cloth.
In the movie it is still sitting there.
You forgot to eat it. We go outside to find
glass bottles smashed behind our cars.
2.
In some men the future is written
with a definite pen.
He strides out of here,
heading into the future.
You were a page of mist,
hovering. Your voice said
other people's words,
erased its own.
How they explained it:
He was fragile,
couldn't face reality.
One radiant tear in a train station-
even today, all our ages stand still
in your face. It is impossible
to blink.
3.
I wish I could have held on
to your coattails.
We could have stood with the other half-sure ones
near the lighthouse in the tourist town
listening to wave and cloud,
the way no script written there
survives, and who worries about it?
Then when they stood in line to say
this world was not enough, perhaps
you would not be among them.
Knowing that story already,
you could make a different one.
The French critic reminds us
the French like their movies ambiguous.
4.
Here in a country of real estate and sun,
you visit only briefly.
Materialize on the screen,
then whisk away,
leaving us pale shoulders,
slightly balding spot on the back of the skull,
maps to a country which no longer exists.
I wish your coattails had been longer.
If we are not fragile, we don't deserve the world.
- Naomi Shihab Nye
from Yellow Glove
reprinted in Words Under the Words