translated by André Naffis-Sahely
Life
It’s enough I woke up
the sun to my right
the moon to my left
and that I walked
from my mother’s womb
to the threshold of this century
Life
It’s enough that I tasted this fruit
I wrote about what I witnessed
I never kept quiet about the horrors
I did all I could
and everything I took, I gave over to love
Life
is nothing short of a miracle
that nobody sees
O wounded body
wounded soul
admit you’ve been happy
Just between us
admit it
translated by André Naffis-Sahely
During two hours on the train
I rerun the film of my life
Two minutes per year on average
Half an hour for childhood
Another half-hour for prison
Love, books, wandering
take up the rest
the hand of my companion
gradually melts into mine
and her head on my shoulder
is as light as a dove
When we arrive
I’ll be fifty or so
and still have
about an hour
to live
translated by Lawrence Ferlinghetti
He poured the coffee
Into the cup
He poured the milk
Into the cup of coffee
He added the sugar
To the coffee and milk
He stirred it
With a teaspoon
He drank the coffee
And put back the cup
Without speaking to me
He lit a cigarette
He blew some rings
With the smoke
He flicked the ashes
Into the ashtray
Without speaking to me
Without looking at me
He got up
He put his hat
On his head
He put on
His raincoat
Because it was raining
He went out
Into the rain
Without a word
Without looking at me
And I
I took my head
In my hands
And I wept
Déjeuner du matin
Il a mis le café
dans la tasse
il a mis le lait
dans la tasse de café
il a mis le sucre
dans le café au lait
avec la petite cuiller
il a tourné
il a bu le café au lait
et il a reposé la tasse
sans me parler
il a allumé une cigarette
il a fait des ronds
avec la fumée
il a mis les cendres
dans le cendrier
sans me parler
sans me regarder.
Il s’est levé
il a mis son chapeau
sur sa tête
il a mis
son manteau de pluie
parce qu’il pleuvait
et il est parti
sous la pluie
sans une parole
sans me regarder.
Et moi, j’ai pris ma tête
dans mes mains
et j’ai pleuré
translated by Lawrence Ferlinghetti
What are you doing little girl?
With these freshcut flowers?
What are you doing there young girl?
With these flowers dried flowers?
What are you doing pretty woman?
With those fading flowers?
What are you doing there old dame?
With those dying flowers?
I await the victor.
Que faites-vous là petite fille?
Avec ces fleurs fraîchement coupées?
Que faites-vous là jeune fille?
Avec ces fleurs, ces fleurs séchées?
Que faites-vous là jolie femme?
Avec ces fleurs qui se fanent?
Que faites-vous là vielle femme?
Avec ces fleurs qui meurent?
J’attends le vainqueur.
Mother, I’m trying
to write
a poem to you—
which is how most
poems to mothers must
begin—or, What I’ve wanted
to say, Mother...but we
as children of mothers,
even when mothers ourselves,
cannot bear our poems
to them. Poems to
mothers make us feel
little again. How to describe
that world that mothers spin
and consume and trap
and love us in, that spreads
for years and men and miles?
Those particular hands that could
smooth anything: butter on bread,
cool sheets or weather. It’s
the wonder of them, good or bad,
those mother-hands that pet
and shape and slap,
that sew you together
the pieces of a better house
or life in which you’ll try
to live. Mother,
I’ve done no better
than the others, but for now,
here is your clever failure.
I read the papers,
I unfold them and examine them in the sunlight.
The way the red mortars, in photographs,
arc down into the neighborhoods
like stars, the way death
combs everything into a gray rubble before
the camera moves on. What
dark part of my soul
shivers: you don’t want to know more
about this. And then: you don’t know anything
unless you do. How the sleepers
wake and run to the cellars,
how the children scream, their tongues
trying to swim away–
how the morning itself appears
like a slow white rose
while the figures climb over the bubbled thresholds,
move among the smashed cars, the streets
where the clanging ambulances won’t
stop all day–death and death, messy death–
death as history, death as a habit–
how sometimes the camera pauses while a family
counts itself, and all of them are alive,
their mouths dry caves of wordlessness
in the smudged moons of their faces,
a craziness we have so far no name for–
all this I read in the papers,
in the sunlight,
I read with my cold, sharp eyes.
Just beyond
yourself.
It’s where
you need
to be.
Half a step
into
self-forgetting
and the rest
restored
by what
you’ll meet.
There is a road
always beckoning.
When you see
the two sides
of it
closing together
at that far horizon
and deep in
the foundations
of your own
heart
at exactly
the same
time,
that’s how
you know
it’s the road
you
have
to follow.
That’s how
you know
it’s where
you
have
to go.
That’s how
you know
you have
to go.
That’s
how you know.
Just beyond
yourself,
it’s
where you
need to be.
Last night we killed a possum,
out of mercy, in the middle of the road.
It was dying, its face was bloody,
the back legs were shattered. The mistake
I made was getting out of the car
(you told me not to), but I wanted to be
sure, needed to know for sure, that it could
not be saved. (Someone else had hit it.)
The sound it was making. The sound
folded me back into the airless car.
Do it, do it fast, I lowered my head
until the thud was done. You killed it quiet.
We drove home under the sickle moon,
laundry gone cold and dry on the line.
But that was last night. This morning
the sun is coming alive in the kitchen.
You’ve gone to get us gas station coffee
and there is so much life all over the place.
I like the lady horses best,
how they make it all look easy,
like running 40 miles per hour
is as fun as taking a nap, or grass.
I like their lady horse swagger,
after winning. Ears up, girls, ears up!
But mainly, let’s be honest, I like
that they’re ladies. As if this big
dangerous animal is also a part of me,
that somewhere inside the delicate
skin of my body, there pumps
an 8-pound female horse heart,
giant with power, heavy with blood.
Don’t you want to believe it?
Don’t you want to lift my shirt and see
the huge beating genius machine
that thinks, no, it knows,
it’s going to come in first.
Compassion Camp 