
by Gaither Stewart
featured writer
Dandelion Salad
10 January 2009
I Saw Jean Jaures On Boulevard Strasbourg
C’est la lutte finale
Groupons nous et demain
L’Internationale
Sera le genre humain.
(The Internationale in its French version)
(Paris) The great tower stands like a beacon over Europe. From the top one can see the Chartres Cathedral seventy kilometers away, on a rare clear day. Evenings from my bedroom window I watch the magnificent tower illuminate. Gradually. Gracefully. As day ends the searchlight at the top at 1000 feet altitude begins sweeping the sky. During last year’s French EU Presidency, as daylight departed and night fell, the gigantic iron structure progressively turned blue, bit by bit, nearly unnoticeable. At first it was a faint, very faint, shade of blue, before, when winter night arrived, it assumed its luxuriant cobalt sheen.
A magic moment for prescient dreamers fascinated by towers and overviews. Nostalgic views, too, which might also end in illusion, in mirage and chimera.
Or in pipe dreams.
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