Celui qui entre par hasard

René Guy Cadou

Celui qui entre par hasard dans la demeure d'un poète
Ne sait pas que les meubles ont pouvoir sur lui
Que chaque noeud du bois renferme davantage
De cris d'oiseaux' que tout le coeur de Ia. forêt
II suffit qu'une lampe pose son cou de femme
A la tombée du soir contre un angle verni
Pour délivrer soudain mille peuples d'abeilles
Et l'odeur de pain frais des cerisiers fleuris
Car tel. est le bonheur de cette solitude
Qu'une caresse toute plate de la main
Redonne à ces grands meubles noirs et taciturnes
La légèreté d'un arbre dans le matin.


Translation by Marie Jones and Todd Hall

He who by chance enters a poet’s home
Does not know that the furniture has power over him
That each knot in the wood harbors more
Bird cries than the heart of a forest
A lamp needs only settle its womanly neck
Against a varnished corner at dusk
To free suddenly a thousand tribes of bees
And the fresh-bread smell of cherry trees in bloom
Because this solitude’s happiness is such
That a mere stroke of the hand
Returns to that tall, black, silent furniture
The lightness of a tree at dawn.

Copyright © 2003 Adirondack Review

Golden Oldies

Rita Dove

I made it home early, only to get
stalled in the driveway-swaying
at the wheel like a blind pianist caught in a tune
meant for more than two hands playing.
The words were easy, crooned
by a young girl dying to feel alive, to discover
a pain majestic enough
to live by. I turned the air conditioning off,
leaned back to float on a film of sweat,
and listened to her sentiment:
Baby, where did our love go?-a lament
I greedily took in
without a clue who my lover
might be, or where to start looking.

Copyright © 1995 Mississippi Review.