André Du Bouchet

                                           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)