Marie Dauguet: 'Les halliers agités ont des mots grandioses'

 

Les halliers agités ont des mots grandioses

 

Les halliers agités ont des mots grandioses

Au vent âpre de Février qui les émeut,

Mais seules les odeurs nous éclairent un peu,

Nous, les aveugles-nés au seuil des portes closes;

 

Nous les sourds. Et je vais à tâtons vers les choses,

A travers la forêt en vertige qui souffre

Et jouit, respirant ces haleines de gouffre

Où gisent les secrets et du but et des causes ;

 

A leur souffle, je tends mes inquiètes mains,

Elles s’en vont palpant je ne sais quelle errance?

Tout l'intangible amour en sa magnificence

 

Echappé, sans merci, à nos gestes humains,

Que la vaine apparence invinciblement lasse,

Refermés sur du vent ironique qui passe.

 

 

The agitated thickets have high words of praise

 

The agitated thickets have high words of praise

For February’s bitter wind which makes them stir,

But we have only smells to poorly light our way,

We, with closed doors before us, who are blind from birth.

 

We who are deaf. And I towards things have to feel

My way through forests that know pain but also bliss

When they inhale these breaths that come from the abyss

Which secrets of both goal and causes can reveal.

 

Towards their breathing I stretch hands out anxiously,

They search by touch some wandering unknown to me –

All love intangible in its magnificence

 

That mercilessly has evaded human sense –

Insuperably tired appearance, grasped in vain

In the ironic passing wind, is all they gain.