Rue des Martyrs

Looking up toward and
near but not in sight of
the white dome, it could be
any city, any city
streetscape. Two
blocks from the hotel you
look for a small shop and
you find more than a small
shop:

Shop of chocolate filling
wrapped in ribboned gold;
flower shop and fruit
stand and vegetable
row with their riots of
color and shape; wine
shop exclusive to bottles
labeled Rhone, the
entire premises dedicated
to fermentations of
one valley; bakery,
no not bakery but
bakeries, more than one, three,
(three!) in two blocks.

A short street of smells, of
flavors, of tastes, of
textures refined and
mundane yet
even the mundane
here is refined; and
always, always the
ubiquitous fragrance of
Parisian automobile exhaust.

Right Bank. Between
Opera and Montmartre.


This is a “streetwise” poem for the High Calling Blogs – a poem about a certain street or address.