Friday
Today’s post will be short as I’m busy preparing for the community celebration of my mother’s life, which occurs Saturday. The high point for me will be when my daughter-in-law Betsy, who has a gorgeous voice, will sing the same French song that that she sang at my father’s memorial service nine years ago.
The song is Jacques Prévert’s “Two Snails on Their Way to a Funeral,” put to music by Jacques Kosma. My mother selected it for my father’s ceremony and loved Betsy’s performance—and because she, like him, was fluent in French and a fan of Prévert’s poetry, it seems right to sing it at her own ceremony.
The idea of having a drink and visiting Paris rather than spending time mourning is perfectly in keeping with how she lived her life (although she would choose white wine over the beer recommended in the poem). I imagine the moon in the poem watching over her as it watches over the two snails.
Song of Two Snails on Their Way to a Funeral
By Jacques Prévert
Two snails were going to the funeral of a dead leaf.
Their shells were shrouded in black,
and they had wrapped crepe around their horns.
They set out in the evening,
one glorious autumn evening.
Alas, when they arrived
it was already spring.
The leaves who once were dead
had all sprung to life again.
The two snails were very disappointed.
But then the sun, the sun said to them,
“Take the time to sit awhile.
Take a glass of beer
if your heart tells you to.
Take, if you like, the bus to Paris.
It leaves this evening.
You’ll see the sights.
But don’t use up your time with mourning.
I tell you, it darkens the white of your eye
and makes you ugly.
Stories of coffins aren’t very pretty.
Take back your colors,
the colors of life.”
Then all the animals,
the trees and the plants
began to sing at the tops of their lungs.
It was the true and living song,
the song of summer.
And they all began to drink
and to clink their glasses.
It was a glorious evening,
a glorious summer evening,
and the two snails went back home.
They were moved,
and very happy.
They had had a lot to drink
and they staggered a little bit,
but the moon in the sky watched over them.