For,
I have demeaned you with my failing words
and my affected songs, fraudulent or desperate memories
that take an element or two, and rebuild you in my own image,
or my own sorrow,
never asking forgiveness,
never approaching with humility
the truth that you are far more,
or far less
than I have revealed.

Anna,
I know that you sit on your own throne,
in your own quiet kingdom
that no longer borders mine
after maps were redrawn
with the conclusion of our loser's peace
and I know that you are stronger and weaker than I am equipped to capture
than I am wont to remember,
and that you are too beautiful for my verse
and too human for my sentiment,
and that I am no more your biographer or cartographer
than I am your lover.
But forgive me, please, if even still
I remember you running between shedding blossom trees
in Ontario spring.
afraid of bees,
hands of sticky toffee
that reach out for me
over and over,
for ever and ever
until I am Adam.

Anna,
I am not the great rock of hope,
nor the petrified heart,
nor the stepping stone,
and though you may come back,
time and time again,
descending from your throne
to proclaim
'Adam, you are the only one who understands.
You are the only one',
do not forget my true name,
nor that I know you as the jealous lover of the Monsoon rains
as the voracious hunger of the bedroom plains,
as the squealing runner of the orchard rows
who reaches out with broken hands
forever
for her absent father's love.

For,  
I am all too rarely capable of seeing
my various deceptions.
Perhaps because I have been listening
to Léo Ferré singing
Avec Les Temps
over and over and over again,
or perhaps because the rain in the air
is the scent and sound of Paris bowing
at the grave of Durkheim,
where you placed your shaking hands in mine
and asked to be lifted up
forever and forever and forever,
perhaps this is why I see through tonight
the pretty and the ugly lies,
the distant island chain of our fabled history
where you fall,
forever and forever and forever.

I should honour you, where I slander you,
and I should forget you, where I speak of you.
We always got things so confused,
and even now,
as you come to me with your daily suicide
you are forgetting
how we killed each other
time after time after time.

Perhaps it's because I've been watching too much of Brel
affecting his way through Ne Me Quitte Pas
that I want to say 'Anna, I love you'.
that I want to redeem you,
but I am afraid,
in case it becomes true.


Mais,
Ne me quitte pas
Je t'inventerai
Des mots insensés
Que tu comprendras
Je te parlerai
De ces amants-la
Qui ont vu deux fois
Leurs coeurs s'embraser
Je te raconterai
L'histoire de ce roi
Mort de n'avoir pas
Pu te rencontrer
Ne me quitte pas.

Mais,
Avec le temps...
Avec le temps, va, tout s'en va
Et l'on se sent blanchi comme un cheval fourbu
Et l'on se sent glacé dans un lit de hasard
Et l'on se sent tout seul peut-être mais peinard
Et l'on se sent floué par les années perdues
Alors vraiment... avec le temps... on n'aime plus.