Conjugaisons

A tense poem

Conjugaisons

Je suis

Tu es

Il est

Nous sommes

Vous êtes

Ils sont

As we do a post-dinner walk

in Issaquah,

I introduce by sister-muse

to the joys of conjugating French

as you do something else,

like exercise or take a shower.

What a fast learner she is,

finding it instantly addictive.

I remember my teacher mother

walking through class

conjugating verbs.

How often I imagined

myself taking the professorial path,

and now, like so many other choices

I did not make,

it must live as a periodic fugue in my head.

I strongly suspect had I taught high school,

I would now now be burnt out,

and wondering why I did not pursue

my writerly dreams.

Je serai

Tu seras

Il sera

Etcetera, etcetera.

The ultimate conjugation, that.

We start with “I will be” when young,

and end with “I could have been,”

and in between, many doses

of “I should do this”

and then “I should have done that.”

But really, there’s no proof that you could have done

anything different than what you did, is there?

Regret is pointless,

but forgiving yourself is not.

The French use le passé simple

in literary expression.

Je fus, tu fus, il/elle fut, nous fûmes, vous fûtes, ils/elles furent.

I was, you were, he/she was, we were, you (plural) were, they were.

What an ironic name for a tense,

the past being anything but simple.

They should call it le passé compliqué.

MCO 2026