The house where I was born (06)
by Yves Bonnefoy
I woke up, but I was travelling,
The train had rolled throughout the night,
It was now going toward huge clouds
That were standing, packed together, down there,
Dawn rent from time to time by forks of lightning.
I watched the advent of the world
In the bushes of the embankment; and all at once
That other fire below a field
Of stones and vines. The wind, the rain
Blew its smoke back against the ground,
But a red flame flared up,
Taking by the handful the base of the sky.
How long were you burning, wine grower’s fire,
Who wanted you there, and for whom on this earth?
And then it was day; and the sun
Cast its thousand shafts of light
On the lace that covered the blue woolen cushions
In the compartment where people slept,
Their heads still nodding. I did not sleep,
I was still at the age when one is full of hope,
I dedicated my words to the low mountains
That I could see coming through the windows.
—————
The End
And that’s the End of the Poem
© Poetry Monster, 2021.
Poetry Monster — the ultimate repository of world poetry.
Poetry Monster — the multilingual library of poetic works. Here you’ll find original poems, poetry translations, ancient verses, ballads and even folk tales.
Poetry Monster (or even The Poetry Monster) — is also an international multilingual community of poets and poetry connoisseurs. Join us:
Some external links: The Bat’s Poetry Cave. — Fledermaus’s poetry site. Talking Writing Monster. — the irreverent and irrelevant chatter on subjects both serious and not quite. A free for all board. You can scribble anything on it without registration (but it doesn’t let spammers in). You can even post your poems. Qwant.com. — a search engine from France. It’s an alternative because there are a few alternatives, like Bing, Duckduckgo, and Ecosia. And there is Yandex, the ultimate language-oriented search engine for the Russophone world. Commercial Links: Russian Commerce – the foreign trade assistance agency Other links: Poems and poetry in Russian (if you are reading this in English, as you obviously are, then you’d have to switch the language, the language switch is on the menu. More on languages)