Paris in Spring

Paris in Spring on a balmy day shot rue Jacob in the 6th district, one of the poshest. There’s something crooked about that front door on the left and it’s got nothing to do with my wide-angle lens. AS Spring is conducive to poetry, here’s a little poem by Paul Eluard, one of the founders of the surrealist movement. As it’s surreal it’s got nothing to do with Spring. But it’s a poem about Paris nonetheless.

In Paris

In Paris there is a street;
In this street there is a house;
In this house there is a staircase;
In this staircase there is a room;
In this room there is a table;
On this table there is a carpet;
On this carpet there is a cage;
In this cage there is a nest;
In this nest there is an egg,
In this egg there is a bird.

The bird knocked over the egg;
The egg knocked over the nest;
The nest knocked over the cage;
The cage knocked over the carpet;
The carpet knocked over the table;
The table knocked down the room;
The room knocked down the stairs;
The stairs knocked down the house;
the house knocked down the street;
the street overturned the city of Paris.

Eluard’s poem in French is available from that website

About Eluard

On December 14, 1895, Paul Éluard was born as Eugène Grindel on the outskirts of Paris. He was an excellent student as a young boy, but after his family moved to Paris, Éluard was registered at the École Primaire Supérieure Colbert, where, by his own admission, he did poorly. His studies were interrupted by illness, and at sixteen he left for a sanatorium in Davos, Switzerland, where he spent a year and a half.

Read on at poets.org