Today I bought a broom.
This could almost be the first line of an Emily Dickinson poem, except that Emily never spoke of her purchases. As a recluse, she let her sister Vinnie buy the brooms.
Some might think brooms unworthy of verse because they hang out in dark closets, collect dust balls, bead the brow with sweat when put to use. But I promise you there is poetry in a well-made broom. Like the one I just bought at Quincaillerie Mirus, on the Avenue Jean Jaurès. Its parentage : the Ateliers Gilles Kerchene in Lapalud, a town in the Vaucluse. I did a little genealogical search on the Internet and found that the Ateliers employ handicapped workers. The broom then was confected by a disabled artisan who I can only commend for the trustworthy handiwork; never have I encountered a broom with such an aura. An aura of what, you ask? An aura of solidity, of earth goodness.
I was instantly charmed by the handsome wood handle, the elongated cloche-like stretch of smocked straw, the solid feel of it when gripped in both hands: it has a healthy weight, neither too light nor too heavy. I divined in this broom the ability to keep step to Eddie Palmiere’s mambo or Mozambique, the capacity to rocket toward a waxing moon with me astride. It is an ordinary boom and it is an extraordinary broom. If I had found it thirteen years earlier, my husband and I would have jumped over it at our wedding like Celts. In Emily’s time, perhaps all brooms were as solid, true, witchworthy; today’s facsimiles get churned out in Chinese factories; they’re made of plastic and cheap metal, have telescopic handles and micro-fiber fringes, all of which could cause a girl grief if ever she needed to fly. If ever she craved to prance.
What elation I felt when I left Quincaillerie Mirus with my artisanal broom! As I walked down the boulevard, the spring sun whisked the straw brush to gold, using the secret Rumpelstiltskin recipe, no doubt. I passed a street sweeper in his green attire, leaning against the metro gate, having a smoke. He looked at me, or rather at the broom, and nodded with admiration: “Ca madame, c’est un vrai balai!” (That, Madam, is a real broom!) Coming from a street sweeper who pushed his own eight hours a day over the dog shit splattered sidewalks of Paris, a man who knew the business of brooms like few do, the compliment compounded my pride. Call it a Quixotic moment, but I was certain just then I could fly right over the boulevard, above our building and down into our courtyard garden reciting Emily to the wind, wickedly.
She sweeps with many-colored Brooms –
And leaves the Shreds behind –
Oh Housewife in the Evening West –
Come back, and dust the Pond!
You dropped a Purple Ravelling in –
You dropped an Amber thread –
And now you’ve littered all the East
With Duds of Emerald!
And still, she plies her spotted Brooms,
And still the Aprons fly,
Till Brooms fade softly into stars –
And then I come away –