English followed by une version en français y una versión en español. After the English there is a Note about Michel Crépeau (1930-1999), the great mayor of La Rochelle. (And this leads to a brief quotation from New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s great speech of 3 July 2026.)

We might call the following sonnet(s) poetry with prose accents (ou une prose teintée de poésie, prosa con toques de poesía). An interest in rhyme led me to make the last line in French rather different from the English, but I like the result:

Et le « progrès » devient un mot de siècles trop naïfs et cupides. And “progress” is becoming a word from centuries too naive and too greedy.

El español tiene su origen en el francés: ¿Y el «progreso»? Una palabra de siglos ingenuos y codiciosos.

An earnest sonnet which touches on international economics and politics

It is said (and with what truth, we don’t even guess)

That poor countries that sought to assist their populace

Ended up with less than countries pro-business,

Who accumulated wealth and could spread it around.

But now with profits wealthy countries abound,

And the money’s for capitalists and their “elite.”

Sports tickets are sold for huge chunks of cheese,

While millions of children – little healthy to eat.

And the profits are made on things we don’t need,

On products noxious, tech-toxic, on recklessness high.

The people thrashing about for better lives and a voice,

And to preserve, among the ruins, something like choice.

Thus this sonnet ends with much still awry,

Though we may be cheered by those who still try.

Note about Michel Crépeau

Michel Crépeau was the left-wing mayor of La Rochelle from 1971 until his death in 1999. One day in 2026, at a popular La Rochelle beach, a beach created by Monsieur Crépeau and his colleagues, I was chatting with a young man there to provide information to passers-by about the city’s extensive bike network, also created by the Crépeau team. Among their other accomplishments: halting building construction along the coastline, expanding green spaces, establishing a waste recycling program in 1974, inaugurating France’s first pedestrian zone in 1975, and launched a free, self-service bike network in 1976 (nearly thirty years ahead of Paris’s system). Crépeau also laid the cornerstone for the University of La Rochelle.

I wish I remembered exactly the young man’s comment, in French, about the former mayor. It was something like: He changed how people thought about their lives.

This is what we need now—what we are in dire need of in these years of intensifying environmental catastrophe—leaders on this level. Leaders who can help us find a way to thinking differently about how we might live.

Thus, allow me here, and in closing this note, to tip my hat to New York Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani for his great speech of 3 July 2026. One of its many excellent paragraphs:

We see a city of contradictions within a nation of contradictions. We see the wealthiest country in the history of the world — one where children go to sleep hungry while the world’s first trillionaire hungers for more. We see monopolies that dominate every industry and oligarchs who buy elections. We see masked agents terrorizing our streets, eating food cooked by our undocumented neighbors before spiriting them away in unmarked vans. We see a nation whose immense wealth has been built by those with calloused, dirt-streaked hands—those who toil on factory floors and chisel into stone—and we see a nation that has allowed so much of that wealth to be held instead in the soft hands of a precious few.

Français

Un sonnet sincère qui touche à l’économie et à la politique internationales

Il est dit (et nous ne devinons même pas avec quelle vérité) :

Des pays pauvres qui cherchaient à aider le mieux leur population

Se sont retrouvés avec moins que les pays favorables aux entreprises,

Qui ont accumulé des richesses qu’ils pouvaient redistribuer.

Mais, de nos jours, il y a une profusion de profits chez des riches,

L’argent étant réservé aux capitalistes et leur « élite » ?

Qu’on laisse à côté des prix elevés pour les billets sportifs,

Et des millions d’enfants sans une alimentation saine ?

Et les profits proviennent de choses dont nous n’avons vraiment pas besoin,

D’une tech haute en imprudence ; de produits toxiques et nocifs.

Le peuple lutte pour une vie plus saine et pour faire entendre sa voix,

Et pour préserver, parmi les ruines, quelque chose qui ressemble à un choix.

Ainsi, ce sonnet s’achève alors que bien des choses vont de travers,

Et le « progrès » devient un mot de siècles trop naïfs et cupides.

Español

Un soneto sincero que aborda la economía y la política internacionales

Se dice (y con cuánta verdad, ni siquiera podemos imaginarlo):

los países pobres que intentaban ayudar lo mejor posible a su población

se han quedado con menos que los países favorables a las empresas,

que han acumulado riquezas que podían redistribuir.

Pero ahora hay una profusión de beneficios en los países ricos,

y el dinero está reservado para los capitalistas y su «élite».

¿Dejemos de lado los precios exorbitantes para eventos deportivos,

los millones de niños que no tienen con qué alimentarse de forma saludable?

Y los beneficios provienen de cosas que realmente no necesitamos,

de una “tech” alta en imprudencia; de productos tóxicos y nocivos.

El pueblo lucha por una vida más sana y por hacer oír su voz,

y por conservar, entre las ruinas, algo que se parezca a una opción.

Así, este soneto llega a su fin mientras muchas cosas van mal.

¿Y el «progreso»? Una palabra de siglos ingenuos y codiciosos.

— Poem(s) and photograph (“Ecce homo”) by William Eaton.

More (prose and in English only) at Art, Sex, Politics, one of the two collections of Eaton’s essays that have been published by Serving House Books.