Vocabulary

So this post has been shared on facebook in quick succession of my last one because I am typing on a French keyboard (pecking, to be exact b/c the keys are in different places to accomodate all the characters), and I could not figure out how to type the @ symbol and therefore could not sign on to FB (until I finally asked today) oh-la-la-la.

Today was yet another adventure in observation and really "getting the lay of the land" so to speak...tower view from Notre Dame, more Seine boating, hoards of walking, avant-garde art gallery, cafe in a garden, French grocery store... you know - the usual. Today my revelation was that I have a very skewed knowledge of French nouns due to the fact that most of my exposure to the French language has been through French art songs and arias. L'oiseau, ombre, papillon, femme, nuit, mer - these are the sort of nouns I know (bird, shadow, butterfly, woman, night, sea). Yet, when asked today if I would like salt and pepper, I hadn't the faintest notion. So, there ya have it. Culture does not trump the common.

I did not include a poem yesterday, so below is one that I did not write, but read in my Writer's Almanac subscription the Saturday before I left. I have reread it many times, for it reflects quite aptly what this time is for me. I wish desperately that I had written it.

The Poet Visits the Museum of Fine Arts

by Mary Oliver

For a long time
     I was not even
        in this world, yet
           every summer

every rose
     opened in perfect sweetness
        and lived
           in gracious repose,

in its own exotic fragrance,
     in its huge willingness to give
        something, from its small self,
           to the entirety of the world.

I think of them, thousands upon thousands,
     in many lands,
        whenever summer came to them,
           rising

out of the patience of patience,
     to leaf and bud and look up
        into the blue sky
           or, with thanks,

into the rain
     that would feed
        their thirsty roots
           latched into the earth—

sandy or hard, Vermont or Arabia,
     what did it matter,
        the answer was simply to rise
           in joyfulness, all their days.

Have I found any better teaching?
     Not ever, not yet.
        Last week I saw my first Botticelli
           and almost fainted,

and if I could I would paint like that
     but am shelved somewhere below, with a few songs
        about roses: teachers, also, of the ways
           toward thanks, and praise.

"The Poet Visits the Museum of Fine Arts" by Mary Oliver, from Thirst. © Beacon Press, 2006.