A m’asseoir sur un banc cinq minutes avec toi Et regarder les gens tant qu’y en a Te parler du bon temps qu’est mort ou qui r’viendra En serrant dans ma main tes p’tits doigtsPuis donner à bouffer à des pigeons idiots Leur filer des coups d’ pieds pour de faux Et entendre ton rire … Continue reading ‘Le Mistral Gagnant’ by Renaud
Souvent, pour s’amuser, les hommes d’équipage Prennent des albatros, vastes oiseaux des mers, Qui suivent, indolents compagnons de voyage, Le navire glissant sur les gouffres amers. À peine les ont-ils déposés sur les planches, Que ces rois de l’azur, maladroits et honteux, Laissent piteusement leurs grandes ailes blanches Comme des avirons traîner à côté d’eux. … Continue reading ‘L’Albatros’ by Charles Baudelaire
This clumsy living that moves lumbering as if in ropes through what is not done, reminds us of the awkward way the swan walks. And to die, which is the letting go of the ground we stand on and cling to every day, is like the swan, when he nervously lets himself down into the … Continue reading ‘The Swan’ by Rainer Maria Rilke (Translated by Robert Bly)
Shall I say how it is in your clothes? A month after your death I wear your blue jacket. The dog at the center of my life recognizes you’ve come to visit, he’s ecstatic. In the left pocket, a hole. In the right, a parking ticket delivered up last August on Bay State Road. In … Continue reading ‘How it is’ by Maxine Kumin
What can I fashion for you but a woven creel of river- rashes, a golden oriole’s nest my gift wrought from the Firth – And choose my tide: either the flow, when, watertight you’ll drift to the uplands my favourite hills, held safe in eddies where salmon, wisdom and guts withered in spawn, rest between … Continue reading ‘The Tay Moses’ by Kathleen Jamie
I have been here before, But when or how I cannot tell: I know the grass beyond the door; The sweet keen smell, The sighing sound, the lights around the shore.You have been mine before, – How long ago I may not know: But just when at the swallow’s soar Your neck turned so, Some … Continue reading ‘Sudden Light’ by Dante Gabriel Rossetti
As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame; As tumbled over rim in roundy wells Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell’s Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name; Each mortal thing does one thing and the same: Deals out that being indoors each one dwells; Selves — goes itself; myself it … Continue reading ‘As kingfishers catch fire’ by Gerard Manley Hopkins
Star in the window. Slate scrape. Bird or branch? Or the whet and scud of steel on placid ice? Not the bootless runners lying toppled In dust in a display case, Their bindings perished, But the reel of them on frozen Windermere As he flashed from the clutch of earth along its curve And left … Continue reading ‘Wordsworth’s Skates’ by Seamus Heaney
Avec le temps… Avec le temps, va, tout s’en va On oublie le visage et l’on oublie la voix Le coeur, quand ça bat plus, c’est pas la peine d’aller Chercher plus loin, faut laisser faire et c’est très bien Avec le temps… Avec le temps, va, tout s’en va L’autre qu’on adorait, qu’on cherchait … Continue reading ‘Avec le temps’ by Leo Ferre
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame, With conquering limbs astride from land to land; Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command The air-bridged harbor … Continue reading “The New Colossus” by Emma Lazarus