Saturday, June 23, 2012

SECOND SIMPLICITY ~






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.


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YVES BONNEFOY
SECOND SIMPLICITY
New Poetry and Prose 1991-2011
( Yale / Margellos )

translated by Hoyt Rogers






photo : Eric Garault pour Lire