Rainer Maria Rilke

 

Imaginary Biography

                                        Translated by Robert Bly

First Childhood, no limits, no renunciations,
no goals. Such unthinking joy.
Then abruptly terror, schoolrooms, boundaries,
. . captivity,
and a plunge into temptation and deep loss.

Defiance. The one crushed will be the crusher
. . now,
and he avenges his defeats, wrestles, wins, 
and overpowers others, slowly, act by act. 

And then all alone in space, in lightness, in cold.
But deep in the shape he has made to stand erect
he takes a breath, as if reaching for the First, 
. . Primitive....

Then God explodes from his hiding place.

Andre du Bouchet

 

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.

 

Andre du Bouchet

SANG

…sang

tel qu’
est
pour le dire
de surcroît
accouru sourdre
un mot

le mot est là

pas moi.

© 1987, André du Bouchet

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)

 

André Du Bouchet

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.

 

Pablo Neruda

Sonnet XVII (translated by Stephen Mitchell)

I don't love you as if you were the salt-rose, topaz
or arrow of carnations that propagate fire:
I love you as certain dark things are loved,
secretly, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that doesn't bloom and carries
hidden within itself the light of those flowers,
and thanks to your love, darkly in my body
lives the dense fragrance that rises from the earth.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where,
I love you simply, without problems or pride:
I love you in this way because I don't know any other way of loving

but this, in which there is no I or you,
so intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand,
so intimate that when I fall asleep it is your eyes that close.

One Hundred Love Sonnets: XVII

TRANSLATED BY MARK EISNER

I don’t love you as if you were a rose of salt, topaz,   

or arrow of carnations that propagate fire:   

I love you as one loves certain obscure things,   

secretly, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that doesn’t bloom but carries   

the light of those flowers, hidden, within itself,   

and thanks to your love the tight aroma that arose   

from the earth lives dimly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where,   

I love you directly without problems or pride:

I love you like this because I don’t know any other way to love,

except in this form in which I am not nor are you,   

so close that your hand upon my chest is mine,   

so close that your eyes close with my dreams.

Holderlin

 Round us the town is at rest; the street, in pale lamplight, grows quiet And, their torches ablaze, coaches rush through and away.

People go home to rest, replete with the day and its pleas- ures, There to weigh up in their heads, pensive, the gain and the loss,
Finding the balance good; stripped bare now of grapes and of flowers, As of their hand-made goods, quiet the market stalls lie.
But faint music of strings comes drifting from gardens; it could be Someone in love who plays there, could be a man all alone
Thinking of distant friends, the days of his youth; and the fountains, Ever welling and new, plash amid fragrance from beds.
Church-bells ring; every stroke hangs still in the quivering half-light And the watchman calls out, mindful, no less, of the hour.
Now a breeze rises too and ruffles the crest of the coppice, Look, and in secret our globe’s shadowy image, the moon,
Slowly is rising too; and Night, the fantastical, comes now Full of stars and, I think, little concerned about us,
Night, the astonishing, there, the stranger to all that is human, Over the mountain-tops mourn- ful and gleaming draws on.

                                                                translation by Michael Hamburger