rené char

To ***

For years now you have been my love,

The vertigo I feel when I lie waiting

That nothing can make old, make cold;

Even that which was expecting our death,

Or geadually knew how to combat us,

Even that which we are strangers to,

My eclipses also and also my returns.

Barred like a boxwood shutter,

An extreme and compact fortune

Is our mountain range,

Our compressing splendour.

I say fortune, o my wrought one;

Each of us can receive

Anther’s share of mystery

Without spilling its secret;

And the suffering that comes from elsewhere

Finds at last its separation

In the flesh of our untiy,

Finds at last its solar road

At the center of our dense cloud

Which it tears and recommences.

I say fortune the way I feel it.

You have raised the summit

That my waiting will have to cross

When tomorrow is no longer there

trans by mark hutchison