Viola Weinberg Spencer's poem "The Scent of Paris"

 Viola Weinberg Spencer was the first Poet Laureate of Sacramento, CA, serving as a literary ambassador to sprawling Sacramento’s schools, libraries, parks, museums, government lunch hours and nightclubs. With ten books written, Weinberg also founded The Tough Old Broads, a group of four women with 200 years of writing between them. Together, they wrote Tough Enough, available on Cold River Press. In her working life, she worked in radio and TV news, before joining a think tank and conducting private foundation grantmaking. She retired to rural Sonoma County where she writes in a yurt. She is a Glenna Luschei Fellow.  

 

The Seductive Scent of Paris

 

Is rarely sensed in this valley town

With its bumper-hugging dusty pick ups and

Dolled up blondes with pink nails

And its boys with caps on backward—

Living under the tent of their sagging pants.

 

But this morning, I waken to the smells

Of coffee in small cups at a certain temperature—

Trees whirring in the butter knife wind

A scent of mustard and chestnut leaves, autumn

Autumn in Paris, the end of tomato season here

 

The thought made me walk slowly

As if I were on my youthful way

To Victor Hugo’s apartment

This time with enough francs to climb the stair

Again, alone, as I always imagine myself

Alone among the poets and the planets, alone

 

Somehow I have forgotten how lost I was

In that place, how mixed-up and angry and tired

A hick on the boulevard, forlorn and lonesome—

Shining and earnest with her quill dipped in ink

Brushing her hair in public to entice the Arab boys

 

What takes me there, so far from the field hands

And double axles and dirt bards of home?

Look, look at the size of my head!

Who do I think I am to be reveling in Paris?

I retreat to the bright corner of my suburban hermitage

 

I bring out the fountain pen and green ink

To write in the small embossed leather book

Of the same color I keep expressly for this—

And in this simple movement, I find my way

Back to the only address I have ever really known.

 

2022 Viola Weinberg