René Char - "Seuil" ("Threshold")

Seuil (Threshold)

          When it gave way, the barrage of man, sucked in by the great rift of the abandonment of god, of the divine, words in the distance, words that wished themselves not to be lost, tried to resist the exorbitant push.  There was decided the dynasty of their meaning.
          I have run to the very end of this diluvian night.  Planted in the trembling dawn, my belt full of seasons -my friends, I wait for you.  Already I can make you out behind the horizon's black.  My hearth never tires of wishing your houses well, and my cypress stick laughs, for you, with all its heart.


                        from Fureur et Mystère
                           Trans.  Eliot Cardinaux