Bezmelnitsin's Gallery :: Denis Bezmelnitsin : "L'étang de Saint-Paul"

Denis Bezmelnitsin

L'étang de Saint-Paul

Celui dont les pensers, comme des alouettes,
Vers les cieux le matin prennent un libre essor,
- Qui plane sur la vie, et comprend sans effort
Le langage des fleurs et des choses muettes!
Charles Baudelaire

What is said - echo shall grasp; What is not -
On water will be reflected; By rain
Morning shall pour, overflow, and wash off
Signs upon water by silence inscribed; only strange
Fret on the lake... what is left; wakeful lark
Did regard those strophes of moon,
Put them in heart, recited and thus
By the melody flowing upsoared, and forsook
Wood and tamarind dell; blended with scud
Of inspiring wind, and spinned like a dervish in dance;
Munifence of strains, of accords in the heart
In harmony gushed... "Whether drunk, whether mad,
Whether fallen in love..." Thought the lark.

Evening pass'd, outchimed the belfry; a nocturne
Did resound, adown'd the moon on the lake
Singing lays... every couplet reflected on water and turned
Into sign-poesy... "So dear to me..." Luna spake,
"This pond of Saint Paul..." The words fell by leaves
On the hearing water... "So bland and tender her splatter..."
Lake sighed, throbbed and murmured, "So lovely you speak..."
Moon inclined and kissed her purity; rendered
Her flesh - liquid silver, "O mere,
Ye will be rum-elixir; lovers who
Have moon in the heart, shall find here
Retreat and a tryst, like you
And me this midnight, when sky is so starry, so clear..."

March 2018