I searched for Ernest et al
on a pallid gray day in Paris.
I pondered the air where they met.
I coursed Parisian rues where they strolled.
Fitzgerald dined where I dined.
I drank the same wine as did Ezra.
A Hemingway plaque on the lip of a bar,
A grain of a book to unfold.
Yet, I sought not these giants for their works.
I required them for their highs and their lows.
For moods are creation’s true souls,
A force to define and unclose.