Yves Bonnefoy
(born 24 June 1923)
Happy Birthday !
French poet and essayist, Bonnefoy was born in Tours, Indre-et-Loire, the son of a railroad worker and a teacher. His works are at the same time poetic and theoretical, examining the meaning of the spoken and written word.
A BIT OF WATER
I long to grant eternity
To this flake
That alights on my hand,
By making my life, my warmth,
My past, my present days
Into a moment: the boundless
Moment of now.
But already it's no more
Than a bit of water, lost in the fog
Of bodies moving through snow.
LE PEU D'EAU
À ce flocon
Qui sur ma main se pose, j'ai désir
D' assurer l'éternel
En faisant de ma vie, de ma chaleur,
De mon passé, de ces jours d'à présent,
Un instant simplement : cet instant-ci, sans bornes.
Mais déjà il n'est plus
Qu'un peu d'eau, qui se perd
Dans la brume des corps qui vont dans la neige.
_________________________________
YVES BONNEFOY
SECOND SIMPLICITY
New Poetry and Prose 1991-2011
( Yale / Margellos )
translated by Hoyt Rogers
A BIT OF WATER
I long to grant eternity
To this flake
That alights on my hand,
By making my life, my warmth,
My past, my present days
Into a moment: the boundless
Moment of now.
But already it's no more
Than a bit of water, lost in the fog
Of bodies moving through snow.
LE PEU D'EAU
À ce flocon
Qui sur ma main se pose, j'ai désir
D' assurer l'éternel
En faisant de ma vie, de ma chaleur,
De mon passé, de ces jours d'à présent,
Un instant simplement : cet instant-ci, sans bornes.
Mais déjà il n'est plus
Qu'un peu d'eau, qui se perd
Dans la brume des corps qui vont dans la neige.
_________________________________
YVES BONNEFOY
SECOND SIMPLICITY
New Poetry and Prose 1991-2011
( Yale / Margellos )
translated by Hoyt Rogers
photo : Eric Garault pour Lire
