We were walking down the streets of the 11th in Paris on a sunny October day. It was the second time I saw him, the first being our date in Seoul. I was staying with him in his small apartment on Rue de Reuilly. I’d just started learning French, so when we passed a bookstore…

“There is a singer everyone has heard,Loud, a mid-summer and a mid-wood bird,Who makes the solid tree trunks sound again.He says that leaves are old and that for flowersMid-summer is to spring as one to ten.He says the early petal-fall is pastWhen pear and cherry bloom went down in showersOn sunny days a moment overcast;And…