Get Your Premium Membership

Passer-By These Are Words

 Passer-by, these are words.
But instead of reading I want you to listen: to this frail Voice like that of letters eaten by grass.
Lend an ear, hear first of all the happy bee Foraging in our almost rubbed-out names.
It flits between two sprays of leaves, Carrying the sound of branches that are real To those that filigree the still unseen.
Then know an even fainter sound, and let it be The endless murmuring of all our shades.
Their whisper rises from beneath the stones To fuse into a single heat with that blind Light you are as yet, who can still gaze.
May your listening be good! Silence Is a threshold where a twig breaks in your hand, Imperceptibly, as you attempt to disengage A name upon a stone: And so our absent names untangle your alarms.
And for you who move away, pensively, Here becomes there without ceasing to be.

Poem by Yves Bonnefoy
Biography | Poems | Best Poems | Short Poems | Quotes | Email Poem - Passer-By These Are WordsEmail Poem | Create an image from this poem

Poems are below...



More Poems by Yves Bonnefoy

Comments, Analysis, and Meaning on Passer-By These Are Words

Provide your analysis, explanation, meaning, interpretation, and comments on the poem Passer-By These Are Words here.

Commenting turned off, sorry.


Book: Shattered Sighs