proofs of the living
Engraved in the nation of the body
That fetters or sets free
Unto implacable absence
Our lives
Will pave Life’s
Way.
proofs of beauty
In these daybreaks of still-fermenting night
With what impetus
to climb?
With what eye to contemplate
Cities, faces, centuries, sufferings, hope?
With what hands to dig
an eternally fecund soil
Raise up an edifice of open air?
*
With what tenderness to cherish life and earth
Abolish the finish line
Relieve the gash?
By what light to discover
the beauty of things
Stubbornly intact
beneath the peelings of calamity?
Translations from the French