XXIX
La pierre est lourde sur mon corps léger
N’y posez pas de fleurs tranchées
O périlleux humains qui marchez sur mon toit
Craignez les ramoneurs aux longs cordages noirs
Le feu le feu follet consume l’œil et la main
Humains doux somnambules qui parcourez les toits
Bientôt dans un grand lit vous vous réveillerez
Sous l’ardoise des collines sous le chaume des champs
La pierre est lourde sur mon corps léger
N’y gravez pas mon nom mortel
Le feu le feu follet flambe à ma cheminée
Translations of this Poem
XXIX
Translator: Magi Gibson
The stone is heavy on my light body
Don’t burden it with severed flowers
O perilous humans who walk on my roof
Fear the chimney sweeps with their long black ropes
The fire the merry fire devours hand and eye
Gentle sleepwalking humans who cross the roofs
Soon you will wake in a wide bed
Under the slate of the hills under the thatch of the fields
The stone is heavy on my light body
Do not engrave my mortal name
The fire the merry fire flares in my chimney
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.
