Arthur Rimbaud-French Poet

I jumped on Wikipedia to look up information on Arthur Rimbaud after reading a reference to Rimbaudian savagery. I’m somewhat of a Francophile and know a lot of things French and was a little surprised the name didn’t ring a bell. Happily I read through the entry filling a gaping hole of knowledge about a premier poet. But when I came to this section of the article the photo put my brain into a bell tower at high noon.

I visited Harar as a child so I went digging, and sure enough.

There it was there amongst the shots of winding streets, colorfully scarves vendors in the marketplace and city gates that lead into this ancient walled city on the eastern edge of Ethiopia.

The mind is an awesome and perplexing thing. More often than not it won’t recall a name at a gathering, leaving me, once again, socially awkward. But then–out of the blue, it will recognize an image from deep in the past.