I climbed you today
in downpours
and falling snows,
no snow flake ever the same,
no foot step ever similar,
I climbed you today
in sunlight and stealing shadows,
in strokes of paint splattered in your memory
by artists as foreign as they are familiar,
I paused upon your steps,
your streets of steps,
the steep steps
others have taken,
others have trodden upon,
to take possession,
to take pictures,
to take part, to be a part
of all that once was
and has fallen to dust
through depression
and recession,
no sails blow no longer
to the winds wills,
the winds upon your hills
no longer home to the mills,
no more the spirits linger
green to the fairy’s touch,
spirits are in bottles now,
corked and capped
and cost too much
and the artists now
are but a shadow
of what once was,
shadows for sale
on the site of what once held cause,
on this martyred mountain
in Montmartre.
I climbed you today
in wind and rain,
the past and future present,
in a reverie of what can no longer be.
I climbed you and stood above you
and marked out the steps
I had taken along you,
along your lines and lanes
that lead me here, to this day,
to this moment, to this place
as this snowflake fell,
this unique particle
never to be repeated,
falling through time and space.

All Words and Photographs by Damien B. Donnelly