One day Paris awoke to a day of blue spring
as I lay in the shade of your eyes
From far the bells of Notre Dame
proclaimed your dreams
which the morning acknowledged
Half asleep,
we made promises this world shall never
forget
and the expanse of your kisses
was a dome of lilacs
Montmartre was alive with song
A thousand artists' hands conjured
a thousand beauties out of dust
and hungry stomachs
A thousand rag-clad urchins,
quick-witted, light-footed,
stormed a thousand Bastilles
in the storm of
one day
Who would ever have thought then
that flowers wilt and springs wither,
that people age and die,
that dreams
can be betrayed
Far
has time moved
Our garden was crushed
by steel's and asphalt's dire weight
and by the grey of the new-built Bastilles
that spread like mushrooms
My letters from prison were buried
and your tear-watered roses between the pages
dried up
and crumbled to dust long ago
Today
the bells of Notre Dame are silent
and flames, like the hands of dark angels,
engulf them
as Paris wakes to agony
at five o'clock in the afternoon
Nothing, they say, shall remain
of our springs and summers now
as I seek refuge in your tears
revived today
by the death of their witness
and by the silence of the bells
that echoed our promises
and would not let them die
In the white of the skies they were birds travelling
through days and nights
in deep remembrance
and immutable memory
From the earth to the skies
silence rose
at five o'clock in the afternoon
and now for us, the ancient lovers,
love must be young again
Stone by stone we must take up
to rebuild every promise
to bring back the spring
to Notre Dame
from the ashes and the flames
of silence
and every kiss must be rekindled
and every dream be dreamed anew
Your hand mustn't be halted by wornness
and my lips must not tire
to enflame you
with their caresses
to love, ardour and toil
now that we must be lovers again
to raise up from the ruins
of five o'clock in this stark afternoon
the new Paris and the new
Notre Dame
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