after Henri Michaux


Somehow it got into my room.
I found it, and it was, naturally, trapped.
It was nothing more than a frightened animal.
Since than I raised it up.
I kept it for myself, kept it in my room,
kept it for its own good.
I named the animal, My Life.
I found food for it and fed it with my bare hands.
I let it into my bed, let it breathe in my sleep.
And the animal, in my love, my constant care,
grew up to be strong, and capable of many clever tricks.
One day, quite recently,

When I am safely laid away,
Out of work and out of play,
Sheltered by the kindly ground
From the world of sight and sound,
One or two of those I leave
Will remember me and grieve,
Thinking how I made them gay
By the things I used to say;
-- But the crown of their distress
Will be my untidiness.

What a nuisance then will be
All that shall remain of me!
Shelves of books I never read,
Piles of bills, undocketed,
Shaving-brushes, razors, strops,

I SAW my Lady weep,
And Sorrow proud to be advanced so
In those fair eyes where all perfections keep.
   Her face was full of woe;
But such a woe (believe me) as wins more hearts
Than Mirth can do with her enticing parts.

   Sorrow was there made fair,
And Passion wise; Tears a delightful thing;
Silence beyond all speech, a wisdom rare:
   She made her sighs to sing,
And all things with so sweet a sadness move
As made my heart at once both grieve and love.

My Lady of all ladies! Queen by right
Of tender beauty; full of gentle moods;
With eyes that look divine beatitudes,
Large eyes illumined with her spirit's light;

Lips that are lovely both by sound and sight,
Breathing such music as the dove, which broods
Within the dark and silence of the woods,
Croons to the mate that is her heart's delight.

Where is a line, in cloud or wave or hill,
To match the curve which rounds her soft-flushed cheek?
A colour, in the sky of morn or of even,
To match that flush? Ah, let me now be still!

(Español)
Perdite, señora, quiero
de mi silencio perdón,
si lo que ha sido atención
le hace parecer grosero.

Y no me podrás culpar
si hasta aquí mi proceder,
por ocuparse en querer,
se ha olvidado de explicar.

Que en mi amorosa pasión
no fue desuido, ni mengua,
quitar el uso a la lengua
por dárselo al corazón.

Ni de explicarme dejaba:
que, como la pasión mía
acá en el alma te vía,
acá en el alma te hablaba.

Y en esta idea notable
dichosamenta vivía,
porque en mi mano tenia

I have a house I've lived in long:
I can't recall my going in.
'Twere better bartered for a song
Ere ruin, rot and rust begin.
When it was fresh and fine and fair,
I used it with neglect, I fear;
But now I husband it with care
And cherish it form year to year.

Oh do not put it to the flame
When I have gone, but let the dust,
The honest earth from which it came,
Reclaim it as is only juts.
For when at last I close the door,
And turn the key and go away,
I deed my house forever more
To silence, sleep and slow decay.

'Nay; I don't need a hearing aid'
I told Mama-in-law;
'For if I had I'd be afraid
Of your eternal jaw;
Although at me you often shout,
I'm undisturbed;
To tell the truth I can't make out
A single word.'

And it's the same with others who
Attempt to gab at me;
I listen to their point of view
And solemnly agree.
To story stale and silly joke
Stone deaf's my ear;
Each day a dozen stupid folk
I fail to hear.

My child wafts peace.
When I lean over him,
It is not just the smell of soap.

All the people were children wafting peace.
(And in the whole land, not even one
Millstone remained that still turned).

Oh, the land torn like clothes
That can't be mended.
Hard, lonely fathers even in the cave of the Makhpela*
Childless silence.

My child wafts peace.
His mother's womb promised him
What God cannot
Promise us.


* The traditional burial place in Hebron of Abraham

Nothing's moving I don't see anybody
And I know that it's not a trick
There really is nothing moving there
And there aren't any people. It is the very utmost top
Where, as is not unusual,
There is snow, lying like the hair on a white-haired person's head
Combed sideways and backward and forward to cover as much of the top
As possible, for the snow is thinning, it's September
Although a few months from now there will be a new crop
Probably, though this no one KNOWS (so neither do we)
But every other year it has happened by November

Mother, among the dustbins and the manure
I feel the measure of my humanity, an allure
As of the presence of God, I am sure

In the dustbins, in the manure, in the cat at play,
Is the presence of God, in a sure way
He moves there. Mother, what do you say?

I too have felt the presence of God in the broom
I hold, in the cobwebs in the room,
But most of all in the silence of the tomb.

Ah! but that thought that informs the hope of our kind
Is but an empty thing, what lies behind? --
Naught but the vanity of a protesting mind