WEBVTT

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All right.

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I'm going to move
from prose now, poetic

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and otherwise, to poems.

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The old fashioned
kind with lines.

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The first is titled
"La somme des choses".

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And fortunately, there's an
epigraph to explain it there.

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"La somme des choses",
a French school term

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referring to a
whole field of study

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that traces civilization's
progress from stuff to things.

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Just love that.

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That's from an essay
by Adam Gopnik,

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whose book Paris to the Moon
you should read if you haven't.

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It's wonderful, it's funny,
it's moving and smart.

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He lived in Paris for a number
of years with a young family

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and wrote these fabulous
essays, many of which

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were published in New York.

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And this was in one of them.

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"La somme des choses."

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"With our help, stuff is always
getting made into things.

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Wet filaments from
Chinese worms,

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that the worms have
spun into pellets.

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Nimble fingers
untangle and weave

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into shimmering shirts for men
to wear on Saturday nights.

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Rough minuscule bits of
silica, heated hundreds

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of degrees with alkali,
liquefy, growing transparent.

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Then we roll it
flat into windows.

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We're blowing through
tubes, sweating Venetians

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make it into vases shaped like
summer squash for the display

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of tulips or chrysanthemums.

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The French, in their
schools for children,

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are inclined to spend whole
days tracing such civilizing

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advances, which is why they
are recognized worldwide

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for lovemaking expertise.

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The stuff of our erotic selves,
they've mapped for centuries.

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The fragrance is rising
from the factories,

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just beneath our skins.

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Our skin's subtle conversation
with heat and cool and breeze.

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The tiny sounds of pleasure,
the umfs and the chants.

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And even those quick, back of
the throat, piglet [GRUNTS]

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Our bodies' musical
chambers spontaneously emit.

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Not to mention, flare
of nose, gape of mouth

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and the entire genome of the
eyes in constant intentions.

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The stuff which draws us
onward to the hand's brush

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of the thigh or knee
under a cafe table.

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The balletic curbside
leap to open a taxi door.

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Those countless things that
make us look ridiculous.

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Hearts hammering,
words stumbling,

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over imaginary pavement cracks.

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Not so the French, of course.

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Who in matter conduct themselves
through desires subterranean

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mazes with no apparent effort.

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Should we observe French
lovers in their seductions

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as we do summer
clouds at our leisure,

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guessing at shapes while lying
on our backs in the grass,

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We'd see first the graceful
curve of a Saharan dune,

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then the web would
have swan, then

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a jolly, modern tugboat
hauling half the sky westward

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to the horizon.

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Nothing resembling the royal
of human displacement the rest

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of us feel.

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Like trout who leapt from
the comfort of the river

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to the pebbled shore,
we jerk and sputter.

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We leave scaly
flecks of ourselves

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in the dirt, which
is why we save

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our drachmas, our yen,
our rubles, our pounds,

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our dollars, even
our lire that we

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might travel to
Paris or Provence

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at least once in our lifetimes.

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We're holding the
hand of someone,

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interlacing with
the body of someone

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on impeccable French sheets.

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Or eye to eye
across a tablecloth

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littered with bread
crumbs and red stains

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while mumbling the few words
we've learned from guidebooks.

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We might feel we've gained, if
only for a moment, the thing

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we desire most before
slipping into eternity,

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that last thing."

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