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Una Or Death, Life: 42, Translation of Pierre Emmanuel's Una Ou La Mort, La Vie: 1 By T Wignesan
Una Or Death, Life: 42, Translation of Pierre Emmanuel's Una Ou La Mort, La Vie: 1 By T Wignesan
Una or Death, Life : 42, Translation of Pierre Emmanuel’s Una ou la mort, la vie : 42 by T. Wignesan
To love words is to love life itself
As early as when he could speak, he understood this
Each vowel took on the form of a fruit
And he a little peasant from his days at school
What he learned was how to savour their meanings
He recalls the taste of grey figs
Milk curds smelling sweet, the whirl
Of Latin words enveloped by pebbly voices
Poetry (as they used to say) that he recited
At the age of seven with catechistic fervour
His heart swollen with love ever since he started breathing
The rhythm of men even higher than the mountains.
* According to Anne-Sophie Constant, Una ou la mort, la vie (first book in Livre de l’homme et de la femme, just as the other two books in the trilogy : Duel and L’Autre, all in twelve lines), the poems are untitled, but numbered.
(Una ou la mort, la vie, O. C. t. II, p. 753)
© T. Wignesan – Paris, 2014
Copyright © T Wignesan | Year Posted 2014
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