Guy Goffette
Construction Site of the Elegy VI
VI
Even if executioner and victim now
are merged or erased, the job
is done, and the grass brought to the dump
praised to the skies by crows,
and we can henceforth go from the executioner’s
dollar-green block to the creamy basket of bedrooms
without washing our eyes since a head
has already rolled somewhere
spilling its tumbril of tears
close to the apple tree carding the horizon:
the body is taken which thought to take
and hold the one love in its arms
where all, all is loss, and finished
by collapsing like a wall or like
that old thistle-spike which blunted the scythe.
Even if executioner and victim now
are merged or erased, the job
is done, and the grass brought to the dump
praised to the skies by crows,
and we can henceforth go from the executioner’s
dollar-green block to the creamy basket of bedrooms
without washing our eyes since a head
has already rolled somewhere
spilling its tumbril of tears
close to the apple tree carding the horizon:
the body is taken which thought to take
and hold the one love in its arms
where all, all is loss, and finished
by collapsing like a wall or like
that old thistle-spike which blunted the scythe.
Translated by Marilyn Hacker
Page(s) 110
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