Measuring love with song
Can all love fit into a mixtape?
An old man with Alzheimer’s
when he vividly remembered
one long-forgotten thing-
a song
one that he played for his lover perhaps,
who can tell?
He remembers nothing but the song.
It makes me believe that all love
can be measured in music
in the elegant geometry of triangles, lines and circles
that trace a relationship
from beginning to middle to end
in songs rich with meaning
like the first sight of someone special
carries the hint of a melody
and when they don’t look back at you
there’s a song for that too.
I know a friend who met a girl,
who made him think of,
When she left him
(as he knew she would)
he listened to something old and Hindi
compatible with his melancholy
when he married someone else
the comfort of their togetherness
was held in a total of 15 songs
some of which are still played on
road trips from Bangalore to Coorg.
I also know a girl who burnt a CD full of break-up songs
none of them angry
all of them regretful
And a man who lives by himself and
thinks of the one time another man
found him worthy of love
Oh wait, this is a scene from a movie,
I apologise,
but the scene confirms my theory
there’s a song for every moment of love.
And when you truly begin to measure love with song
you find that the song for romance
preserved fresh in cling-film
between a 75-year-old man and his wife
And the song for an undiscovered but fading affair
is sent in furtive emails on vulnerable evenings.
And the song for someone much loved and long dead
is the perfect eulogy.
Of course there’s a song for loving yourself too
but no one knows it except for you.
