ADELE NE JAME

When Love Is So Far Away

LaFerme Ladouceur

          for Haas

                       We eat ripe figs for dessert,
                       my friend and I.  We have traveled
                       around the world for this
                       summer night together in Ramatuelle,
                       at the edge of a mountain vineyard.
                       The garden restaurant is perched so high up 
                       in the cold mountain air, I can barely believe
                       that we burned in the sun
                       at the edge of the sea just hours ago.
                       Now only these few tables nestled in
                       among the olive trees all lit up with white lights
                       like stars hanging from their branches.
                       We shiver and sip sweet wine,
                       eat the delicate pink fruit on our plates.
                       The leaves all around us are translucent as
                       dragonfly wings, but unfrenzied.
                       Flightless.  Utterly still.  Waiting, I think,
                       for the wind to stir them to life again.