Je vous écris…
Je vous écris à présent
que la porte claque à jamais
derrière nous
de ce pays de passé de légendes
je garde inaltérable
la forme que l’amphore
donne à la clarté de l’eau
et la carte fiévreuse des routes
où l’on s’est perdu
creusés dans les marches
les pas si lents des hommes
sur le seuil
la vielle femme en noir
déjà un peu ailleurs
n’attend plus rien
de passage
avec ou sans
signature
Translations of this Poem
I am writing...
Translator: Donny O’Rourke
I am writing to you now
that the door is clattering shut
behind us forever
from this land mapped out by myth
I guard changelessly
the form which the amphora
lends the clarity of water
and the feverish map of roads
where one has lost oneself
treading deeper into the well worn footsteps
the steps so slow of men
on the threshold
the old woman in black
already somewhat lost and limnal
no longer expect anything
passing though and on
with or without signature
About this poem
The Scottish Poetry Library in partnership with the Institut français d’Ecosse invited Jacques Rancourt, director of the annual Festival franco-anglais de poésie and editor of La Traductière, to choose about twenty poems from the last twenty years to be circulated to four Scottish poets, who would then choose twelve poems to translate.
M. Rancourt and Magi Gibson, David Kinloch, Brian McCabe and Donny O’Rourke gathered in the Scottish Poetry Library on 15 December 2002 for a concentrated day of translation, re-working and working on the poems they’d chosen, with advice from M. Rancourt and in discussion with each other. This collegial approach was different from the usual practice of showing work to one or two friends in its intensity of focus and level of exchange.
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Mireille Fargier-Caruso
Mireille Fargier-Caruso was born in the Ardèche and now lives in Paris. She has published a dozen collections of poetry, among them Lettre à Lo (Centre Froissart, 1993; Prix Froissart 1993), Même la nuit, persiennes ouvertes (le Dé bleu,...
