Paul Verlaine

As a school girl learning french,

I memorized a poem by Paul Verlaine,

it described a creeping sadness,

that followed him in the rain,

I focused only on the words themselves,

"Il pleure dans mon cœur..."

on the syllables and the cadence,

remember, recite, nothing more.

---

Decades later I find myself here,

soaking wet as " il pleut sur la ville",

feeling things I couldn't grasp at,

as an ambitious petite fille,

the agony and ennui,

regurgitated on that stage,

without a frame of reference,

for the words upon that page,

and this flavor of innocence takes me back,

breaks this existential loop for a spell,

if only it were all about the diction,

I'd be doing fairly well.