Nocturne

Toi, Seine, tu n'as rien. Deux quais, et voilà tout . . .
—Verlaine      

 

Do you know what silence means?
Deux quais, et voilà tout.
My dear, my dear,
The skaters tremble.
In the grey there is no void.
The grey resembles ice as the stairs
This city. The voice begins
Like the ice to tremble.
Oh! foreign vase
On the mantel your force
Is tremendous as if the ice were soft
And you immovable.
Or the white statue,
Statue of lace
Moved even her hand or her face
Leaned backward into the past.
So my mysterious, unbroken calm,
This fortitude you have kept for an hour.
Do you know what silence means?
Deux quais et voilà tout.

Aus: Fallschirme, Geliebter. Ausgewählte Gedichte. luxbooks, 2008
Original: Collected Poems. Ed. by H. H. Guest. Wesleyan University Press, 2008

Barbara Guest    29.12.2008