On Listening to French Cafe Music
You cannot understand the words.
You cannot read the music.
It is all foreign and pleasingly strange.
There is perhaps something lost
in the not knowing. Meaning perhaps
or a knowledge of progressions, but
there is something gained,
a deeper listening, not just for music
but understanding
even when understanding is not possible,
you create your own, like love at first sight,
it is magic.
About this poem
I have a love for French Cafe music, but I can’t understand a word. I also have a weakness for Middle Eastern music, and again, I can’t understand a word. A lot of my life is like that. Loving things I cannot understand. Perhaps understanding is not necessary to love. Something to think about.
The photograph was taken in a Vivaldi museum in Venice.
Be well. Travel wisely,
Tom
Quarry House 
Down in Port Aransas, on Mustang Island in the Gulf of MEXICO, there was, maybe is still, an ice cream parlor. The woman who worked there, owned it maybe, played French music. Rather loudly, for such a small place. I don’t know if it was café music. But the songs were always in French and sung by a woman. The women all had smoker’s voices. The sort of music you might expect to hear in old movies. I adored the place. Not least because of the ice cream. The furniture was wooden and painted in bright colors with a high shine. The owner rode a little pastel blue Moped.
Thanks for recalling that memory. ❤️