Le chien
Le chien aboie à l’écho de la montagne
qu’il lui rende son aboiement –
Tu sais, le chien
moi aussi j’ai aboyé
à mes rêves, à mes amis, mes quatre murs
et même mes dieux, si j’en avais eu
je leur aurais aboyé dessus –
J’ai aboyé à la vie
dans l’espoir qu’elle me rende
l’écho de mon premier cri
J’ai aboyé
moi aussi
The Dog
The dog barks at the mountain’s echo
– my barking! give it back
Dog, let me tell you
I’ve been barking too
at my dreams, at my friends, my walls
and had I had any
I would have barked at my gods, too
I’ve barked at life hoping
it would give me back
the echo of my first scream
I’ve been barking
too
Dieu
Dieu
est le plus ancien prisonnier politique
des Etats-Unis d’Amérique
God
God
was the first political prisoner
of the United States of America
L’ombre qui boite
À supposer
Que je sème du verre pilé
sous mes pieds pour savoir
si mon ombre elle aussi
s’y blesserait –
Continuerait-elle
mon ombre
désunie de ma chair
sa route sans moi ?
Ou bien accepterait-elle
la blessure
pour prix d’être mon ombre ?
The Limping Shadow
Say
I scatter crushed glass
under my feet
to find out whether or not
my shadow would also get wounded
Would my shadow
break free from my flesh and move on
Or would it accept the wound
as the price to pay
for being my shadow?
Une mésange
Une mésange est venue
toquer du bec sur la vitre
Interrogeant le son
la résistance
elle insistait
L’oiseau sans doute
ne sait-il rien du verre
Mais nous aussi nous connaissons
ces transparences
qui nous interdisent
A chickadee
A chickadee has come
tapping with its beak on the window pane
It checked both sound
and resistance
insistently
Birds are very likely
unaware of the glass
But like them we encounter
those transparencies
which arrest us
Alexis Bernaut was born in Paris, France, in 1977. He was first published in reviews in 2009. His first collection of poetry, Au matin suspendu, was published in December 2012; his latest book, Un miroir au coeur du brasier, came out in May 2020 at Le Temps des Cerises. His poems appeared in several anthologies worldwide. He is also the translator, among others, of poet Sam Hamill and novelist Earl Lovelace.