I came across a photo I had taken in the Port of Baltimore and never published it. The composition was acceptable but I assume I did not find a story in it. So, it went to the “Rejects” box.
But today, years after the photo was taken with a 1954 Ukrainian Kiev camera, a single word came to my mind:
L’Albatos!
Indeed, it is a poem by the French poet Baudelaire published sometime in the late 1850s. When I was a teenager, it was one of my favorite poème noir as most of the decadent poet of “Les Fleurs du Mal”. In the L’Albatros, Baudelaire compares the albatrosses to a poet who in flight are the “prince des nueés”/prince of the clouds but when on land they are awkward walking because of their large wings.
Le Poète est semblable au prince des nuées
Qui hante la tempête et se rit de l'archer;
Exilé sur le sol au milieu des huées,
Ses ailes de géant l'empêchent de marcher.
This approximately translates as:
The poet resembles this prince
of clouds
who haunted storms and sneered at archers;
now, banished to the ground, and surrounded by crowds,
its wings of a giant forbid it to walk well
Indeed, the photo above seems to capture seagulls in both of these states – as magnificent birds in flight reaching the clouds like a poet is in his thoughts and expressions, but also as unattractive avian when sitting on the docks.
So, as in Egyptian art where Isis is depicted with outspread wings, there is safety in flight. As there is safety in a poet’s emotions transcending earthly slings and archers.
And my own thoughts migrated to lines from Rumi:
"This is love: to fly toward a secret sky, to
cause a hundred veils to fall each moment. First to let go of life. Finally, to
take a step without feet."
Without feet. That is what Baudelaire saw so awkward in the walk of the albatross. Just wings. Toward a secret sky.
Now I was thinking about love and how it has been compared to a bird in poetry. Perhaps the most famous line is from Bizet’s Carmen, Habanera:
“Love is rebellious bird that nobody can tame, and it's all in vain to call it if it chooses to refuse.”
… In my college dormitory room I had a poster that read:
Love is like a bird – if you hold it loose,
it flies away. If you hold it too tight, it dies
And then, through
experiences sought or unwelcome, I learned that there was a third possibility –
love will end up with broken wings as Gibran described his tragic love of Selma
Karamy in Beirut. Is a bird a bird when its wings are broken? Is a poet a poet
when he cannot reach the clouds? And, is love worth celebrating when it cannot
haunt the storms of rejection?
… When I was taking
my driver’s license test in Beirut many decades ago, there was writing, in
Arabic, on the wall of the test site office. It read:
Do not speed – death is faster
And today, recalling
that line (which rimed beautifully in Arabic) I thought of the inscription on
the gravestone of Mary Woodson who died on her way to church to be married in
1785. It read:
Death had quicker wings than love
And this line is
still being used in many songs and literary works.
…I think the circle was
well traveled starting with the photograph, then the poet as an awkward walking
albatross, and finally love and death as they get affected by the flight of
time, experience and fate.
But before I stopped
writing, fate made me wonder if wings, when made of wax and feathers are worse
than the awkward walk of an Albatross.
I think Icarus would
wonder about that too!
June 22, 2021
© Vahé A.
Kazandjian, 2021
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