The sole aim of the world is to glory in itself unceasingly and to glorify us too, even amid our despair and in death, since it pushes along these shining clouds above our heads and our poems. I see them, day and night, over the dome of Les Invalides, unfurling through all the indescribable shades of blue. It is true, we are placed here like an encampment of canvas tents and the wind of eternity rushes on. But anyone who takes a moment’s notice can believe that light is a form of greeting, that it has chosen the deep and fragile mirror of our eyes. Such is the modest elevation of my thoughts as I wait for the bus in front of that monumental pact achieved in stonemasonry between Mansart and Bruant; and up in the sky is the breath of the gods. (Everything passes: the wind, the gods, eyes, stone, clouds, buses, and at different speeds, but in order to show that splendour lasts on–and peace be on earth to those other clouds that lie in store for us.)
Jacques Réda, The Ruins of Paris 29
