Paris, Rodin, Rilke

Hôtel Biron (undated, after 1908), now Musée Rodin

                    The old Beaux Arts train station, now Musée d’Orsay; the broad gardens of the Tuilleries and the bridges of the Seine; and, of course, the Eiffel Tower viewed from Trocadéro, where dusk reduces it to pure geometric lines before it’s lit up. The shock of Paris seen for the first time. The L’Orangerie near the Tuilleries now shelters the Nymphèas of Monet—overwhelming in their hugeness, you could almost tilt and dip into the water.

                    Around the Hôtel Biron, the well-kept gardens are littered with Rodin’s seemingly pulsating bronzes. This is where Rilke discovered his new voice. In response to Rodin’s aesthetic of “living surfaces,” he began to write what became his “thing-poems,” and, like one who gazes at the archaic torso of Apollo, reflected on the transforming power of art: “Du musst dein leben ändern” (Your life must change).

(Paris, late 1990s - Gainesville, FL, 2007)