Translated by Marilyn Hacker

1

Begin, begin again, no matter where!

From now on it only

matters that every day you do

some task, a task

performed attentively,

honestly. It only matters

that you add to the unending construction of reality

(never completed) your very small daily share....

Through the telescope or with your one remaining eye

you see slowly, rather badly in detail,

but all in all well enough. Well enough to get your bearings.

Well enough to follow the road that little by little

reveals itself. Well enough to do your part

as best you can. After all, in fact,

does it matter, the task’s particulars,

the outline of the foot’s form in the sand,

or the goal where you finish, late, tired enough,

where you finish perhaps, sometimes, by arriving?

But there is no goal either.

The goal is always receding toward the unreached

dunes.

2

Easter is the opposite of Christmas.

The square empties, the living being disappears.

It is the end of visible fleshly life,

of meals, of hours of sleep. It’s the end

of action at once observed and dubious, measurable, measured,

kept secret, discreet.

                 Only two or three women encounter

the Present. They don’t ask themselves questions, they want

to know what is or isn’t. Then a few disciples, in groups,

including Thomas. Who must be approached and shown.

There thus do characters, states of mind differ.

                 At the same time, flowers, trees, life overflowing

the fields, awakened animals, moved to mate,

to feed, to kill. The triumph of the visible begins, the

material, which will not start to melt, to disappear

till the start of winter. Splendor of pelts.

Splendor of eyes, of paws. Total ignorance.

Ignorance of a more durable, longer-lasting world.

Is this the grossest, heaviest stage

of the stupefaction visible to the soul, there where it

cannot even remember, in any case no longer say...

3

No more sleeping pills. No more appearances.

No more symbols, in truth, neither stones nor plants.

Nor houses. Nor trees.

Come forward on my deserted paths, approach

my deserted spaces. I will be henceforth

the voice of silence, the shadow at your left on days

of brilliant light, the sound of steps on pebbles,

time that passes and passes so slowly, so fast;

I am your silence and what surrounds it; I am

your silence and what’s deepest, if seldom, in it.

Say goodnight to me, say good morning, good morning especially,

a long good morning as a work day starts

say good morning to me to call me, me here and now

me in my turn, you in your turn, us in our turn

to call us

to the creation.

4                                                        Easter Monday

Listen. Follow me. The man in the chapel,

excuse me, the church, Anglican, official and all that

explaining, commenting on, while looking at no one,

some very brief word in the Epistle to the Hebrews,

insists on that essential teaching of Christ,

preaching to us like the greatest pioneer.

Follow me. Come along after me. Walk behind me.

Is it a predilection for discipline? For modesty?

Is it authentic intelligence and heart?

I don’t know. I don’t even know

what is due to me, what I take undeserving?

I don’t know when I ought to stop.

And telephoning my confidante would in truth

be useless. She would vaguely reassure me, one might say at most,

for a few moments, at most. Those birds flying off,

are they carrying a ray, a crumb, a paltry

piece of my heart? Or nothing? Their shadow?

The shadow of their fear and of their lightness?

I would have so many questions for you.

5

Yellow beak, curved beak, rabbit’s nose,

swan’s bill. Bring me nothing. Teach me nothing.

I must wait. In the silence and the dark.

In the tormented night’s unsavory shadows.

In disorder. Must wait without even

a specific hope. Must wait until

the waited-for result has been achieved.

Wait, that is to say, for moments, opportunities,

the rarely fruitful I don’t-quite-know-whats.

Farewell, Floriane! I no longer know who you are,

what or whom you resemble. It’s too far.

It’s too shrill, too childish, too unimportant,

too free of everything, only a whim of the heart,

or was it the eye? Right now the others

are traveling, will soon try to sleep. Still others

are in bed and sleeping deeply. And others,

insomniac, finish reading one last

chapter. In other longitudes, others

celebrate the last hour of the day or the first

hour of the morning. The mistral solves nothing.

It takes time to make a single

observation, simple and true.

6                                       Easter Monday, 1:20 a.m.

Would I still know how to fill a day?

Or simply how to wait?

Fill nothing? Not even think of it,

not think of how to tell the difference

between filled urns and empty urns, but only

between the sleeper and the one who truly keeps watch.

7                                                                         2:30

Which one is it, which part, which, not the body

but some comparatively minimal part of the body, which one is it

that doesn’t want to sleep?

8                                                                         4:15

Wait for the morning, why? To be through with waiting?

Will it let me fall asleep comfortably at last?

To fall deeply asleep? As if I were

a healthy being, affirmed in his health at habitual hours.

Wait for the morning, let it come at last and dawn

on the indifferent hills, spread new light,

all fresh, on the indifferent streets

among the sleeping spectators.

When will I be able to return to what I knew?

9                                      Wednesday the 23rd, 1:45

Who needs you? No one.

Of course there are some who wouldn’t mind

having a drink, telling a story, taking a walk,

just talking, and who, in a way, for a moment,

if you were dead, would regret your disappearance.

But the fact that in the end, for you, on this earth,

not for them, you’ve disappeared, wouldn’t affect

their mood, their appetite, their wish to get going,

and why should that change anything at all?

Those, then, are the limits to keep in mind.

Within those limits, there’s a bit of space.

Nothing outlandish, but enough for the really

free man, really reasonable (if that word still

means anything whatsoever). It’s only, after all

about

preparing the usually ungrateful ground

where you will sow the seed, mediocre,

or, better still, uncertain, of your difficult growth.

And they, they also like to sleep, do nothing special,

believe a little, read a lot, take walks,

and not be forced each day to make useless

and uselessly spectacular choices. One doesn’t want

things to happen; one wants them to be, and to only change

slowly, very slowly, like real tissue

of a real body. That said, of course

I thank the guardian angel and think I recognize him

as well as is possible without yet having seen him.

Without having felt or heard or even

really sensed him. But I believe he exists.

Like the postman whom after all I’ve never seen

after six months in this new apartment.

How quickly time goes with its damages

at least as quickly as with its pleasures.

My little daughter is sleeping at this hour. Deep, even

breaths. Deep? Perhaps, yes, and in any case,

even. A tree, perhaps, believes it feels

insects darting or animals scratching

their rump on its thorns

or flies in search of unlimited flight.

This writing has become hard to read, minuscule,

not terribly clear, and—perhaps—destined

to fall back—perhaps—to a confused

and dubious level. Better to start learning

again, with elementary lessons

concerning the whole length of the body.

No strength to protect the titles and credits

in the developing of your film, or is it

the cover drawing in particular, with so many

drawings sometimes deformed or cut in two

in “artistic” cover designs?

Lord, allow me

to stay patient, to not ask for too much,

to know how to wait for the unpredictable,

the unpredicted, emerged briefly from some

shipwreck or catastrophe, if we escape it.

10                                                         Saturday 0:30

Nothing to say—everything to wait for

nothing to undertake—everything to do

and anyway, what’s poetry,

who knows, really knows?

No one knows it, no one does it

without a doubt, without a doubt in the soup,

in the salad, in the dessert.

Go to bed and try in your sleep

to be.

11                                                          2-5-57, 01:15

And there it is closed once more, the door that led

  to the dark, subterranean waters.

Of course, there is still damage. One closed eye.

  A large scar on the skull.

The insomnia of the first part of the night.

  The wretched teeth. The still-mediocre

memory. But all of that alive.

  What will you do from now on?

Sedentary work, somewhat solitary.

  A house in the country.

What will you do? That which must be done.

  That which presents itself. That which

insists. What will you do? You will live.

  A long time. Patiently. Without protesting.

You will live because you must live, because one must

  do what one was born to do. There is no

escape, no real one, possible. There is only

  the possibility of doing what one was born to do.

12                                                  3.5.57, 0100 o’clock

disorder is stubborn

Disorder, as soon as one has stopped wanting, always

returns by itself and easily.

Is disorder death’s preparation

or life’s goods acquired in passing,

untuned, unpunctuated, unpredictable?

Farewell slumber, farewell energy!

The spirit, unwearied, unsatisfied,

scours the walls of the afflicted brain.

The body, half asleep, is annoyed, tired,

doesn’t manage to oppose it.

It’s irritating, the spirit brings nothing,

finds nothing, only seeks,

perhaps only moves, sluggishly,

a few tiny degrees from left to right,

from right to left, without stopping, not

satisfied, finding no peace.

Will this dismal vigil go on for long?