Plight of the Troubador (Billy Collins)

Another poem by Zed's favorite poet, Billy Collins.

Plight of the Troubador For a good hour I have been singing lays in langue d'oc to a woman who knows only langue d'oïl, an odd Picard dialect at that. The European love lyric is flourishing with every tremor of my voice, yet a friend has had to tap my shoulder to tell me she has not caught a word. My sentiments are tangled like kites in the branches of her incomprehension, and soon I will be lost in an anthology and poets will no longer wear hats like mine. Provence will be nothing more than a pink hue on a map or an answer on a test. And still the woman smiles at me feigning this look of sisterly understanding.

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