Inspired by bittersweet memories while driving up Ohio Street through my old stomping grounds on the way to the grocery store. I was just home from Paris and everything seemed blah compared to the beauty and history I had just experienced. The juxtaposition of the bane of suburbia and the resplendency of Paris became clear in my mind and this prose was born.
Like in the movie “Inception” I could imagine the suburban street with it’s plain vanilla buildings turning inward and then downward like the cubelets on a Rubik’s Cube and transforming into a Parisian street adorned with gold-embellished wrought iron street lights with the gentle hum of steps on centuries old stone streets, bells tolling in the nearby cathedral, and the air arush with activities of clergymen and lovers alike…
As the Bell Tolls and Lovers Go
Hot asphalt, familiar brick buildings, and the clanging reflections that stretch to the top of the clouds of another day
Another blue sky absorbed in the noise
Feeling like a ghost peering out from behind a veil that loosely blocks the vision of another place, another time
Revealing the sounds of sweet voices mingled with grand cathedral prayers in praise of the bells that toll for an empire of beauty that caresses the footsteps of lovers, pilgrims, leading them into a mist of devotion and purity
Constraining them from the mundane
Luring them toward the passionate intercourse of life, love and reflection
The asphalt cools as the streets absorb the sound into a crush’ed block of stone upon stone upon heart, ascending toward a world unknown…
A gentle man quickly rushes by me and his flowing cloak brushes against my skin.
© Sandy Hibbard
