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These poems by Colette Wittorski are taken from her collection "Northern Lights."
Translated from the French by Fred Johnston.
The text of the poems read out in this You Tube clip can be found below.
1.
Ce soir le silence ne m’aime pas
La pointe du cristal qui dessine mes traces
Peine sur le limon
Et le vent les efface
Si bref est l’instant
Hâte-toi
Tire la corde inéluctable
Je voudrais tant
Prendre à l’aigle sa couronne
Et m’envoler
3.
Chacun relié
Accordé
Le présent prend sa place
Imperceptiblement les arbres
Se saluent dans leur forêt
Nous inclinons nos cimes
L’échange des bouquets
Nos voix si singulières
Coulent de source
9.
A la fourche de l’arbe
L’écartement se creuse
Pourtant
Confondue dans la foule
Avide
Elle boit le lait des jours
Et quand sa vie s’achève
Par les fentes du coeur
La ruche se vide
13.
Vieillesse
C’est la fonte des glaces
Et sur le sol qui bouge
La menace de l’engloutissement
Chacun fuit
Les rires se taisent
Le lac se vide
27.
Errant entre les familles
Bousculée par les espèces
Pressée stressée usée
Enfin je joins le temps des arbres
Et mêle à la leur ma lenteur
25.
’ouvre les yeux
Le jour m’attend
Déjà les oiseaux vibrent de leurs chants
Posé plus bas
Sur d’autres cimes
Un lac de brume passagère
Masque le torrent
Et me transmet ses certitudes
2.
Tonight silence is no friend
a nib of rock-crystal hardly scratches the silt
and maps my tracks
and the breeze erases them
The moment is so brief
Make haste
stretch the fatal rope
I want so much
to take the crown from the eagle
and fly away
4.
Each of us is connected
in harmony
The present takes its place
faintly the trees
nod at each other in their forest
we bow our heads
an exchange of flowers
our voices so strange
flow in the spring
10.
In the fork of a tree
a fault-line opens
Nonethless
Smothered in the crowd
Greedily
She drains the milk of days
and when her life ends
From these cracks in the heart
The hive empties
14.
old age
is ice melting
and on the altering earth
the threat of being swallowed
we flee
the lake runs out
laughter becomes silence
28.
Wandering among families
banged about by their own
pressured stressed broken
at last I make it back to the rhythm of trees
and mingle my slow pace with theirs.
26.
I open my eyes
the day waits
Already birds thrill the air with song
Set below
between other peaks
a lake of shifting fog
obscures the mountain stream
mirrors back to me its certainties
Copyright © Colette Wittorski 2009
Translation Copyright © Fred Johnston 2009
All rights reserved
The author has asserted her/his right under Section 77
of the Copyright, Design and Patents Act 1988
to be identified as the author of this work.
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