"The Clock" - a prose poem for a lady

I am neither a big fan of the poet Baudelaire nor am I a big fan of prose poems, but this one got my attention.

I'll admit that the opening got my interest and I wanted to know how, but I too often find prose poems to be just prose. Like flash fiction. Poetic language? Perhaps, but many novelists have poetic language but I would not call a novel an epic prose poem. 

I'm told that intent is key in making a prose poem a poem. That is a tough one to evaluate.

Feel free to educate me on this with a comment.

"L'Horloge" (The Clock)

a prose poem by Charles Baudelaire [translated by David Lehman]

– for a lady

How do the Chinese tell time? By looking at the eyes of their

cats. Here’s how.

A lost missionary, afoot in a sleepy suburb of Nankin, had

forgotten his watch and asked a little boy what time it was.

After a moment’s hesitation, this street urchin of the celestial

Empire said: ‘‘Wait, I will tell you.’’ A few seconds later, he

reappeared with a very fat cat in his arms, looked into the 

whites of her eyes, and said, ‘‘It is almost but not quite noon.’’ 

Which was the case.

As for me, if I favor my beautiful Feline, so felicitously named –

the honor of her sex, the pride of my heart, and the perfume 

of my spirit, day and night, rain or shine – in the depths of her

 adorable eyes I can always tell what time it is, and it is always

 the same time, an hour vast, solemn, limitless as space undivided

 into minutes and seconds – a lingering hour no clock observes, 

soft as a sigh, swift as a glance.

And if an intruder came to disturb my study of this enchanting dial,

if some malevolent genie, some demon of ill fortune, were to address

me as a vain and idle mortal and say: ‘‘What are you staring at?

What are you looking for in the eyes of that creature? Is time told there,

 and can you tell it?’’ I would reply without hesitation. ‘‘I know what time

it is; it is Eternity.’’

Madame, is not this a most meritorious bagatelle, and as full of vain

self-regard as your high and mighty self? Frankly, my dear, it has given me

so much pleasure embroidering this pretentious piece of puffery that I ask

nothing of you in return.

from the Summer 2019 issue of The Yale Review, in which four other prose poems by Charles Baudelaire appear.

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