Cour de Rohan (1922)
Photo by Eugène Atget
Photo by Eugène Atget
Heraclitus famously asserted that we can never step in the same river twice, for the river is constantly changing and so are we. In short, everything is transitory, and no experience, however beautiful or transformational, can ever be truly replicated. All that remains is the memory, but that alone, as the poet Jack Gilbert reminds us, may be more than enough.
THE LOST HOTELS OF PARIS
By Jack Gilbert
The Lord gives everything and charges
by taking it back. What a bargain.
Like being young for a while. We are
allowed to visit hearts of women,
to go into their bodies so we feel
no longer alone. We are permitted
romantic love with its bounty and half-life
of two years. It is right to mourn
for the small hotels of Paris that used to be
when we used to be. My mansard looking
down on Notre Dame every morning is gone,
and me listening to the bell at night.
Venice is no more. The best Greek islands
have drowned in acceleration. But it's the having,
not the keeping that is the treasure.
Ginsburg came to my house one afternoon
and said he was giving up poetry
because it told lies, that language distorts.
I agreed, but asked what we have
that gets it right even that much.
We look up at the stars and they are
not there. We see the memory
of when they were, once upon a time.
And that too is more than enough.
