Friday, May 16, 2014

does even photography kill, like words, like thought?







The Bird

--- Bird, what are you after here, fluttering over my books?
Everything in this narrow room is foreign to you.

--- I know nothing of your room, and I am far from you.
I have never left my wood. I perch on the tree
Where I have hidden my nest, so reinterpret
Whatever you are seeing. Forget about a bird.

--- But I see you right here, your feet, your beak.

--- Doubtless you can span the distances.
If your eyes have found me, it's not my fault.

--- But you are here, since you answer.

--- I am answering the fear of man I always feel.
I feed my little ones and have no other diversion.
I guard them in secret in the dark of a tree
That I believed as dense as one of your walls.
Leave me on my branch and keep your words.
I fear your thought like the shot of a gun.

--- Calm the heart that hears me under your feathers.

--- Ah, what horror your feigned kindness was hiding!
You have killed me. I fall from my tree.

--- Well, I need to be alone, and even the gaze of a bird ....

--- But I was far away, in the deep heart of my wood!


-- Jules Supervielle
(my translation)


my gratitude to Roxana, who showed me this poem




3 comments:

  1. ah, you have killed me now!!!! :-)

    oh, i am speechless, that bird, the world swirling into being around her, like around an origin... and the poem!!! speechless, james, oh

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  2. Photography, words, thoughts....give life and share beauty. What kills is inertia and no words or thoughts. Keep taking your life-affirming photos, James, and sharing poetry, too. To me, poetry is always life affirming, even if the subject is death. xo

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  3. like a perfect painting or conversation with the sky; brilliant:)

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