Everything becomes words
earth
pebbles
in my mouth and under my feet
man given back
redeemed
in stones
in coins
of gold
currency of words and steps
what I say makes you laugh
nameless
gold that barters me
alive.
Everything becomes words
earth
pebbles
in my mouth and under my feet
man given back
redeemed
in stones
in coins
of gold
currency of words and steps
what I say makes you laugh
nameless
gold that barters me
alive.
portrait by Giacometti (1965)
Painting
all things look as if
they are waiting, as soon as we see them. is it by their
proven resemblance
that we will know they are, at the same time that we are,
here.
itself, it is
reality — other, and resembling nothing, that we
desire. already, in the doorway, it flowers. in
the halo flush with bloom, which cuts through all
appearance. almost unmoved.
the tile. the vines
of the façade. in
the branchings, the breakage of the sky. this is how the given world’s
fatigue, its freshness, cracks and flowers.
it happens
that, once we’ve reached the thing we have desired,
it may slip away into an infinite otherness. no
illusion if the window returning the color of its light to the
blue we do not see is forever merged with
that blue. who, then, will say the name of recognized things?
already, through our waiting, they have flowered.
(tr. Hoyt Rogers)
Dawn without sun
white straightaway.
From the cliff : an immense trampling of clouds suspended above the flow of the Seine. This white chain cracks open above the island like a needle’s eye.
Magical fields, like a beach of cuttlefish and kelp newly abandoned by the sea. Colors still preserved — sharp fishbones, lace of thistles bright as window-panes — awakening of yellow and purple dots before they’ve stirred.
At dawn : everything that’s worn becomes both new and worn. Worn objects — brand-new — not yet tired out by day — like the stones of the path that glow.
Here is the unending spring we’re steeped in as we sleep — that we can glimpse when we’re awakened toward the end of night : we catch sight of night’s mists.
The body of mist spreads underfoot like the trampling of clouds. The sun rises in our chest even before it appears on the room’s horizon; between the black casements, the black knoll standing out against the light, dawn plows us.
The head shoots up in its field, its tethers suddenly cut— it wouldn’t take much for us to crow like roosters.
Sonnet XVII (translated by Stephen Mitchell)
I Got Off the Train I got off the train And said goodbye to the man I'd met. We'd been together for eighteen hours And had a pleas...