Philippe Jacottet
Vows
I
For a long time I have desired dawn
but I cannot bear the sight of wounds
When will I finally grow up?
I saw the lustrous thing:
why did I close my eyes?
If I have lost my way
lead me now
hours filled with dust
Perhaps little by little
mingling pain with light
will I advance a step?
(In the unknown school
learn the fleeting path
but what is longest and most difficult)
II
What then is song?
No more than a kind of glance
If it could still live in the house
like a bird
who would nest even in ash
and fly through tears!
If only it would keep us here
until we have been taken
for blind beasts!
III
Evening come
to gather all things
into the paddock
To milk, to feed
To clean the trough
for the stars
To put what is near in order
spreads in the distance
like the sound of a bell
encircling itself
Translated by Paul Auster
Page(s) 19-20
magazine list
- Features
- zines
- 10th Muse
- 14
- Acumen
- Agenda
- Ambit
- Angel Exhaust
- ARTEMISpoetry
- Atlas
- Blithe Spirit
- Borderlines
- Brando's hat
- Brittle Star
- Candelabrum
- Cannon's Mouth, The
- Chroma
- Coffee House, The
- Dream Catcher
- Equinox
- Erbacce
- Fabric
- Fire
- Floating Bear, The
- French Literary Review, The
- Frogmore Papers, The
- Global Tapestry
- Grosseteste Review
- Homeless Diamonds
- Interpreter's House, The
- Iota
- Journal, The
- Lamport Court
- London Magazine, The
- Magma
- Matchbox
- Matter
- Modern Poetry in Translation
- Monkey Kettle
- Moodswing
- Neon Highway
- New Welsh Review
- North, The
- Oasis
- Obsessed with pipework
- Orbis
- Oxford Poetry
- Painted, spoken
- Paper, The
- Pen Pusher Magazine
- Poetry Cornwall
- Poetry London
- Poetry London (1951)
- Poetry Nation
- Poetry Review, The
- Poetry Salzburg Review
- Poetry Scotland
- Poetry Wales
- Private Tutor
- Purple Patch
- Quarto
- Rain Dog
- Reach Poetry
- Review, The
- Rialto, The
- Second Aeon
- Seventh Quarry, The
- Shearsman
- Smiths Knoll
- Smoke
- South
- Staple
- Strange Faeces
- Tabla Book of New Verse, The
- Thumbscrew
- Tolling Elves
- Ugly Tree, The
- Weyfarers
- Wolf, The
- Yellow Crane, The