“Paris, as everyone knows, is pre-eminently a gray city. I mention it because, in the realm of watercolor, American painters use this made-to-order gray excessively and obsessively. In France the range of grays is seemingly infinite; here the very effect of gray is lost.” Henry Miller – Quiet Days In Clichy.
I recalled walking
On a drizzling November afternoon
In 1985
Through the Marais.
Rue Francis Bourgeois
Buses spew diesel fumes
A hack a cough.
Low filthy clouds hanging head high.
The facades coated a somber gray
Under the sky’s solemn Verdun gray.
Even the rain was gray.
Henry Miller’s quote crossed my mind.
I have not counted how many.
But I have seen the grays of Paris.
They are without number.
But when there’s light,
Paris
Always the Eternal City of Light
Paris, le Ville-Lumiere.
Sauf quand il ya le pluie.