AE FOND KISS
Am I imagining the sad look in my eyes?
Do you see what I see?
Do you feel what I feel?
I am listening to Ae Fond Kiss, sung by Philippe Sly, and this particular recording makes me cry. Every damn time. Robert Burns writes Ae Fond Kiss in 1791. It is one of those complicated human stories that makes me wonder how people manage to get themselves into these situations and then have the nerve to write beautiful poetry about them.
Burns is married to Jean Armour. Agnes Maclehose is married to James MacLehose. Agnes is separated from her husband, who is in Jamaica, and Burns and Agnes become infatuated with each other. Sounds familiar?. Well, they exchange letters under the names Sylvander and Clarinda, and the letters become increasingly personal and emotional. Their relationship is generally described as platonic, although there is certainly no shortage of feeling in those letters.
Who needs Facebook? Who needs a chat room? Give two people a pen, some paper, and enough time, and they can make a hell of a mess all by themselves. Am I being judgmental? Well, I suppose that’s what judges do. And humans. But let's no jump ahead, there is obviously so much I do not know.
Agnes eventually decides to go to Jamaica to try to reconcile with her husband. Burns sees her for the last time in December 1791 and sends her Ae Fond Kiss shortly afterward. And the poem is his goodbye. It isn't a poem about somebody dying. Agnes is alive. She is simply leaving, and Burns knows that whatever exists between them is coming to an end.
I think that's why I can hear the poem as something much more than a farewell between two lovers who are going their separate ways. It could easily sound like a goodbye to someone who has died. The finality is there. The loss is there. The knowledge that the person you love is no longer going to be part of your life is there. But Agnes isn't dead. She's leaving.
It is all so tragic and sad, I can only imagine what these two went through. Someone doesn’t have to die. They can be alive, somewhere in the world, going about their business, and still be completely gone from life. But there is something particularly cruel about that. Death at least has the decency to explain itself.
But, Burns doesn't try to turn the situation into something tidy. He knows he is losing someone he loves, and the poem simply sits with that fact. There is love, there is pain, there is regret, and there is the knowledge that there isn't much he can do about any of it. One fond kiss, and then we part.
Philippe Sly recording makes the poem even harder to escape. He doesn't try to make the song bigger than it is. He gives the words room, and suddenly I am not just hearing an old poem written in 1791. I am hearing a person saying goodbye to someone he doesn't want to lose. So here I am, listening to it again. And crying. Again. I could put the damn thing away. I don't. I play it again.