Journeys Translation of Etiemble S Tercets Voyages By T Wignesan
Journeys, Translation of Etiemble’s tercets: Voyages by T. Wignesan
For André Gâteau
(End rhyme scheme: aab, ccd, aab, eed in the original, the first and third tercets beginning
with “Pour vous…” and constituting one complex sentence each. One would do well to bear
in mind in this poem that Etiemble was the foremost authority on Arthur Rimbaud’s poetry.)
For you all over I laid out
my oases, all their date palms
in the tiresome desert without wells,
where the salts of nitrous valleys,
for you* only and your hollow hips
squeaked with the leaps of camel calves.
For you only I stretched out
the fine lace of the poplars
over the blue shirt of the nights
and scoured out of this bone
the winding sheet of dead stars
a place to lie as long as mine.
* “tu”: second person “you”.
© T. Wignesan – Paris, 2014
Copyright © T Wignesan | Year Posted 2014
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