Do you remember Paris on occasions when Spring winds
Wash in from the east and the sound of drinks on terraces
Sweep over the city, recalling those lazy days- a lifetime ago,
Before we knew London together or what it would be like to part?
Do you, do you remember Paris, my room, our love
And all those carefree dreams we shared and found
As we lay at night in that single bed, in the corner, wrapped-
Not just due to lack of space- so tightly in one another,
Long before I lost myself and you lost me?
Do you dare to look back on those weekend meanders
Through the cobbled streets that I thrilled to show you
And you longed to see through my eyes, as well as yours?
Those early days of bloom that fell so timely to nights
Back at the water castle, a name-deceptive metro stop,
Where kisses would take us through to the dawn.
Remember our first Spring and how it warmed into Summer
As we sailed through the city like no one else existed
And no time could have been more suited to such a pair
Who fell in love with dogs in pet shop windows as we strolled
To Pont Neuf, to sip on wine, wave farewell to the sun and sleep
Under the shade of a tiny park, at the bottom of the bridge
On the first site of the city, by the walls of its Musee du Louvre.
Remember that rainstorm, that marvelous Sunday; we woke up
As the lightening struck and birds flapped wildly to find reason
Amid the mornings madness why their feathery wings failed
To find flight. Funny how I missed any warning in their fluttering.
I remember your first night in my city- deep in The Banana
In Les Halles, with Yasmine’s infectious grin, boys in towels
On table tops, the piano, the dancing and the DJ who sang
And the morning that found us before we had stopped.
Remember La Grande Jatte, in the shadow of Seurat,
On a sleepy Sunday morning when we stopped
To make connections beyond what the eye could see-
To remember what the painter had seen? You sang
Of the colors between the water and the sky, ignorant
To all but us and the music that filled our minds on that ordinary day,
In a simple Summer, during a Sunday stroll, on an isolated island,
Where everything seemed more and more extraordinary.
On Hugo’s trail, we searched out the ghosts of a Paris long fallen to history-
Stench filled sewers, Luxembourg gardens and finally, and above all,
By a tree in the far reaches of LaChaise where Val Jean had laid
His miseries to rest. Was it later that night I confessed to be falling
While in your arms and your eyes replied that you were already there?
Do you remember that time at Disney? You, the one with the Mickey ears and I,
The one with the childlike fears till the valium kicked in- your treasured
And unused stash- an airplane’s roar enough to set your hairs on end.
Do you still remember those endless nights in the Tropic; sipping on Gin Fizzes,
Fresh from the cinema, sandwich grec’s on the way home along rue saint Denis-
It’s ladies only then awaking to their nocturnal life?
Remember that single bed in the corner; I always woke up stuck to the wall
Or wedged somehow between bed and brick. The sofa, the table
And the sunflowers of plastic- so not what you’d imagined at all.
Remember those early wake-up calls as Monday morning broke our spirits
And sounded a parting- a rush to the station and tears as you left me
Wondering, always, when you’d return.
Do you dare to venture to the times we shared
In what seems like a lifetime ago when not a minute suggested
What time would design and we’d one day have to let go?
Remember Paris,
Remember you,
Remember me,
Remember us.
Damien B. Donnelly 