Le saule pleureur [English translation]

On my fifth birthday my father bought me

a weeping willow that would live past the day I'd turn 100.

He took care of it, so that it could watch over me,

and then he deserted it, like it did Mom and me

The weeping willow is dying

from bad faith water

poured by a gardner

whose boot just switched foot1

The weeping willow is dying

from bad faith water

poured by a gardner

whose boot just switched foot

The tree that loved us stopped growing,

and turned into a thistle as if getting revenge.

It let itself dry up, just like my smile.

It bears in its own way our tears as pennants.

The weeping willow is dying

from bad faith water

poured by a gardner

whose boot just switched foot

The weeping willow is dying

from bad faith water

poured by a gardner

whose boot just switched foot

The house is freezing with lies like icicles,

our love is frozen, eaten away by myths.

Even such a nice manure2

will not regrow any grass.

The checkerboard trail3

will be overgrown by ivy.

I doze every night next tou our weeping willow.

Even though nothing remains, I still wrap myself in its scent.

When I was young, its branches covered me, I felt in a cocoon

its branches are dry now, you need to cut the apron strings

The well is sealed with resentment, love does not irrigate home anymore.

A young tree is not the only thing in need of affection, we too are.

I've been caught in the middle too many times4,

sap-coated sweet talk, we're fed up with smalltalk

The dead willow's outline still tells its stories.

In this one, a page gets turned, the leaves fly off at random.

1. "l'arroseur arrosé" (the sprinkler sprinkled) is an idiom equivalent to "the boot is on the other foot now" or "the biter is bit"2. "fumier" can also mean "bastard"3. no idea what she alludes to4. the French idiom goes "I've stuck my finger between the bark and the trunk"