A French Phrase
Recently, in a restaurant seated next to me was a couple in ecstasy.
They were engaged in obviously amorous, animated conversation.
Their effervescent exchanges were layered with laughter & joyful rejoinders.
My eyes and ears became prying portals onto their pleasure,
inexorably drawn by the desire to dine on their delight in each other.
Then there was a moment of serene silence
in which they cast communicative glances at each other;
eye-to-eye reflections---the language of looks.
The silence was broken when he extended
what appeared to be a rose and his heart in handboth bathed in royal red radiance.
So courtly and chivalrous was the extension
that it embodied the purity of sincerity.
It was a genteel gesture of such mood making magnitude
that it demanded an oral offering
which he gave by uttering A French Phrase.
I have no idea what he said,
but her receptivity to it was revealed by her reaction:
at the instant of utterance a halo formed above her head
and her entire being became a sunbeam
that attracted all the natural and artificial light in the room to her,
and a smile that merited immortality
and measured galaxies in gratitude
crossed her face as she was lost in space
between his words and her worth,
which he obviously considered equal.
And every patron turned and stared,
guided in her direction by the light.
Yet the collective visual invasion was not impolite or intrusive!
A lady seated nearby remarked, with unconcealed admiration,
What a sweetly-scented sensuous sentiment,
fraught with the fragrance of heartfelt feelings.
Her companion nodded in agreement,
and though no translation was forthcoming
for me and I cannot repeat even one word of what I heard,
his tone alone told me that his honesty-hued,
elegantly expressive poetic portrait
has found a permanent place in the fortress of her fondest memories.
The entire experience, while touching,
caused me to lugubriously lament my lack of foreign language skills.
For if I spoke French, I would utter that phrase to you
and evoke from you a reaction identical to hers.
Or, had you been there, you would have known
what he said and probably would still be smiling.
Recently, in a restaurant seated next to me was a couple in ecstasy.
They were engaged in obviously amorous, animated conversation.
Their effervescent exchanges were layered with laughter & joyful rejoinders.
My eyes and ears became prying portals onto their pleasure,
inexorably drawn by the desire to dine on their delight in each other.
Then there was a moment of serene silence
in which they cast communicative glances at each other;
eye-to-eye reflections---the language of looks.
The silence was broken when he extended
what appeared to be a rose and his heart in handboth bathed in royal red radiance.
So courtly and chivalrous was the extension
that it embodied the purity of sincerity.
It was a genteel gesture of such mood making magnitude
that it demanded an oral offering
which he gave by uttering A French Phrase.
I have no idea what he said,
but her receptivity to it was revealed by her reaction:
at the instant of utterance a halo formed above her head
and her entire being became a sunbeam
that attracted all the natural and artificial light in the room to her,
and a smile that merited immortality
and measured galaxies in gratitude
crossed her face as she was lost in space
between his words and her worth,
which he obviously considered equal.
And every patron turned and stared,
guided in her direction by the light.
Yet the collective visual invasion was not impolite or intrusive!
A lady seated nearby remarked, with unconcealed admiration,
What a sweetly-scented sensuous sentiment,
fraught with the fragrance of heartfelt feelings.
Her companion nodded in agreement,
and though no translation was forthcoming
for me and I cannot repeat even one word of what I heard,
his tone alone told me that his honesty-hued,
elegantly expressive poetic portrait
has found a permanent place in the fortress of her fondest memories.
The entire experience, while touching,
caused me to lugubriously lament my lack of foreign language skills.
For if I spoke French, I would utter that phrase to you
and evoke from you a reaction identical to hers.
Or, had you been there, you would have known
what he said and probably would still be smiling.
