Ode to the Little Hotel


Little Hotel
we love you
and in your little
rooftop room we love
each other, even though
we are big
and hardly worthy of such
a little bed.

*

We love the street
you stand on
which is neither long
nor short, but somewhere
in between. And we love
your neighbours
who are our friends —
smaller than us
and so ideally suited
to their address.

*

O Little Hotel we love
your breakfast room
your petit déjeuner
the crypt we reach by
steep narrow stairs
a bob and curtsy on the last
to miss the bottom
beam — we love
all this.

*

You are our first
and last of Paris, Little
Hotel. We love
your lightning and the
rinsing rain, the way
your white towels sound
the slap of surf
outside our room.

*

You are the rabbit
of Paris. The duck
with beans and peas.
Little Hotel you are
our herb and cheese,
our soup and sauce,
you are all of these.

*

O Little Hotel
we love your lift
in which we are
always pleased
to know each
other, pressed so close
as we are.
And when we take them
we love your stairs —
wide enough for one
winding up to light.

*

Little Hotel
your windows through which
we duck and climb
to stand on your roof
and look out over
other roofs, we hold these
dear to us.

*

You are paint and wood
and stone and all things made
from these. O Little Hotel
you are a gallery
of leaves.

*

You are our pink suit
of Paris, Little Hotel, our men
in shorts, our jazz band.
Later we will slap our knees
and remember you as four musicians
outside the Sorbonne.

*

O Little Hotel
in whose room
we read and
rest a little
after long days
we revere you.

*

O Little Hotel
we will never
forget you. We will write
and we will return.
O Little Hotel
doorway to our city
of Paris
au revoir.