He said:
Why must they destroy and destroy again?
Why must they forget my face my gestures my voice?
Why must they believe in my absence even as I stand in front of them?
Why must they erase my wounds and toss my tears to the dogs?
Why must they forget that I am a man just like them?
Having utterly dispossessed me, they still think brutality remains their best ally
I am an old man who took an oath to build
And build again
When my strength has departed me
I took an oath
To build
On the faces of the missing
On their foreheads
With their tears
On a field of ruins
I always sit
On this stone
When I tire of walking
When all around me dead voices and tears echo
I sit on this stone where every night
Memory’s fingers draw a new house for me
I remember
A door slamming
A fleeting step in my heart
A shaft of moonlight in the tree’s branches
We left
To join the wanderers
On a long road
Under a dark sky
I did not know that a child’s stubborn soul
Could make this instant last forever, undying
He added:
No God built the world to honor the mighty
How many heroes have fallen off their pedestals?
How many tears will have to be shed
Before reason rediscovers reason?
Today’s vanquished might be tomorrow’s victors
Time’s cynicism has no equal
The order of days is an open sequence
Then he said:
Either light exhilarates the watchful heart
That heeds its guidance
Or does not exist
But who will listen to an old man, a vagabond carrying a peaceful and brotherly sky on a long, tortuous, and hopeless road?
Translation from the French