Keats and Yeats are on Your Side - Père-Lachaise

Gaia and I enter from the corner by the Père-Lachaise metro station. A cemetery official was there with maps for sale and postcards of Jim's grave. Jim is No. 20. The man is pleasant and speaks English well. He says that he sells few postcards other than Jim's and mentions that on the 100th anniversary of Chopin's death (No. 7), there were no visitors.
I am awestruck by the crypts and tombs like small apartments. We weave our way to our destination ("Jim" painted on the cobbles, and an arrow). As we get closer, my heart pounds with anticipation; will I feel different after completing this journey? Will his karma leap out engulfing me? Someone yells, "It's over here," and finally I lay eyes on a simple grave tucked in-between more stately others.

It's odd, the aura. Père-Lachaise is silent but for the birds twittering in the trees and a crow that sits atop the head of Honoré de Balzac. Still there's music in the air. If thoughts were colors you'd see lyrics wafting out the heads of Jim's guests. The aura from my head is yellow, "Break on through to the other side;" an endless stream of "Break on through to the other side." The Belgian girl's is purple. It says, "This is the end, beautiful friend the end." Hers is sadder than mine, the lyrics dripping down like rain.
I look up and Gaia is gone. She is at the grave of Théodore Géricault. In bronze he lies upon his side with a painter's palette, wearing a beret. She's standing there. I take her hand. "Hi." "Hi." There's silence. The lyrics from out of our heads mix and swirl, but Gaia is singing Morrissey: "Meet me at the cemet'ry gate. Keats and Yeats are on your side." We wander the pathways. We reach the metro. She looks at me and says, "Keats and Yeats are on your side." "While Wilde is on mine," I reply, and the metro pulls into the station. - Edit from Jay and the Americans

Published on July 06, 2020 07:43
No comments have been added yet.