Les Dieux
Ils viennent
comme des amis longtemps absents
qui sonnent à la porte du jardin
dans leurs vêtements
flotte un parfum de lointains pays
ils ne savent rien des deuils
qui nous ont dévastés
nous découvrons leur lenteur
leurs gestes entravés
qui ne parviennent pas jusqu’à nous
C’est un jour de fête
avec des cadeaux sur la table
personne
ne les ouvre
le ciel d’après-midi
se fait très vaste
Translations of this Poem
The Gods
Translator: Brian McCabe
They come
like long lost friends
who ring at the garden door
their clothes fragrant with the scent
of far off countries.
They know nothing of the sorrows
which have devastated us.
We realise how slow they are
how fettered their gestures
none of which touch us.
It’s a feast day.
The offerings are on the table.
No one
opens them.
The afternoon sky goes on forever.
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.
