Ghazal Par Amour

“…Who shall give a lover any law?”
~ Chaucer, “The Knight’s Tale” (Canterbury Tales)

The squeals up in a tree are of a squirrel
fighting off a suitor; perhaps a paramour?

The usage of this word, Middle English,
the 1800s, is for the sake of love, par amour.

I like the entry in Webster’s 1913 Dictionary:
lit, by or with love, from the Fr. par amour.

Such beautiful words: when did they turn
illicit, derogatory? Stripped of armor,

title, role, various defenses— beneath the flesh
is the heart’s taut muscle, matched to any matador.

Songs of courtly love all aim at the impossible:
the beloved out of reach, the hapless troubadour.

In Spanish, querida means dearest one. When did it come
to signify poor fallen dove, secret paramour?

Wong Kar-wai’s film has neighbors thinking the lonely journalist
and the secretary from the shipping company are paramours.

The screen’s painted in tones of broody red, shades of jazz
in the background. The message: love story with no guarantor.

The man whispered the secret that he could not share
in a hollow in a tree, and covered it with mud: nevermore.

Is it my voice you hear in your head, when you first rise?
I loved her first ere thou, wrote Chaucer, for par amour.

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.