Threre is a time for paris
It is not today with its updated tempo.
It is when life was new
Full of first
First freedoms
First kisses
First loves
There can never be another first love.

I sit here on this spring day
Just as i did so very many
Years ago.
The warm sunlight of the old city
Reflecta on the river seine
Just as it did back then
When I found her.

She saw me holding my easil
My pallette in my hand.
So young so innocent
Have you eaten she whispered
In he soft french accent.
As beautiful to my ears as the chiming of church bells

I suppose my thin build and gaunt face cried out starving artist.
No mam'selle i answered
Not for a while i must finish
My paintings to sell them.

She touched my hair way too long and overdue for a cut
She lifted it from my face
You are so beautiful she purred
As my heart fell into her hands

She took me back to her flat
A small place over a cafe in montmartre.
I ate bread and cheese and coffee.
And fell asleep
When i awoke she kissed me
Come to me she said I will take care of ypu.
I finished my first six paintings and in between painted her portrait .
I think it is the best work I had ever done
Before or since.
Americans came to buy my art and wanted to buy her portrait i refused to sell it.
It is part of me i explained
It contains the best of my heart.
At night she would sing at the cafe and collected tips from the patrons
But she would not sing la vie en rose until i came down to to rest from my artwork.

It is my gift to my lover she explained to the tourist who requested it of her.  .

Then she would touch my hair
And sing the old french ballad
I fell in love with her so hard
So very hard.
When our daughter was born
I think I was the happiest man alive.
Michelle meet your papa she sang.
It waa four years later the sickness came.
She smiled and said she would be just fine in a week or two.
But i knew…..i knew.

Forty years later
I sit as I do each year on this day in the springtime at the spot where we met.

My lovely daughter Michelle
Comes to pick me up with her daughter my grandaughter
Named Annie just like my love.
Dad she said come on home
Its chilly here by the river.

My grandaughter ask of me
For the thousandth time
Grandpere why did you never remarry even after all those years.
I tpuch her pretty face so full of first times to come.

I Smile and say
Because you only get one first love nothing else can compare ma petite.

Back at my flat over the old cafe her portrait hangs over the fireplace.
And down below among the tourist in the cafe
A beautiful voice is singing
La vie en rose
And I know it is for me.