Bric-a-brac (translated)

  Bric-a-brac, translated from French by Amy Hollowell, PURH, 2018, 146 pages.

The Gallé pate de verre bowl

Displays, in relief, a dragonfly,

Green compound eyes,

Bluish body,

Translucent wings,

As if floating, convex surface,

On one of the edges ready to depart.

Wandering soul,

Almost friable, ephemeral,

It takes on the insect’s fragility.

Like an insect net beating the prairie

The auctioneer’s hammer pursues it:

Any takers?

One minute here, one minute there,

Nada, gone!

These objects possess peaceful stillness,

The easy tranquility

Of old things

Of course displaying the patina of age

But still solid

And still here.

Of little import to them our life carried away like a leaf in the rapids:

They outlived our ancestors,

Beyond our death they will be present still.

Jean arrives, the Armenian,

King of the secondhand market,

Slumping like a tree

Nearly fallen:

“How’s it going, Jean?”

“Oh, not great,” says he,

Arms gripping the first shoulder he meets,

Teary-eyed,

He’s just lost a friend,

A heart attack, brutal, at 51.

Felled by this storm, he cries:

“My mother I had already lost,

But a friend of thirty years!

Together we had built,

Our lives entangled like branches.”

Oh Jean, your face is heartbreaking,

You thus hadn’t realized

This world is ephemeral?

Like things, people are only loaned to us:

One day they must be returned.

What is there to say?

The room quite big,

Ancient bathroom,

A pitcher,

Basic shower,

Trickles – rust – in the sink,

A film set.

The towel, little bar of soap on top:

Sign of attention.

Dead fly in the groove of the window frame.

And especially the one

That on the ragged bedspread is still dozing,

Who upon the window opening will spring up,

Who turns up in every sunbeam

Who before you had already moved into this place

(This room is hers)

And from the curtains to the floorboards

Imposing its presence

Lightly sneaks around

– Dust.

Along the highway:

After the stand – pewter –

The garage sale

Ends

In a coniferous smell,

Woodpile, their trunks lined up to dry,

Suffocating fragrance.

Sun at its zenith, a perfect picnic area

The beginning of this path,

Edge, id est a marvelously medieval clearing.

And it’s almost a green-laced helmet that suddenly

Lands on your arm, superb, a Buprestid,

Nervous beetle, fierce in flight,

In its natural armor

– A heraldic green bliaut –

With metallic green tints and red highlights.

Cornerstone

At human level,

I touch you

You who have not moved since the construction: this edifice

13^th.

How many people like me

Immobile here on a stiflingly hot day

Have leaned?

How many of them at that time saw you

And their hand fragile butterfly wing,

Stone washed by these rains (thousands),

These winds of air and dust,

You who saw thousands of White Admirals fluttering toward the forest?

You ooze:

Existences.

Chiseling his mark

The stonecutter, he held you in his arms,

Before, toward your destination, installation.

With a treadwheel crane (hoisting device)

Vibrant like the flight of a sphinx,

The air, every cubic centimeter, you touched.

I touch you stone and touching you I touch your hands,

Yes, your living hands,

Those who made the journey to reach you,

Erratically among the ash trees and umbellifers, common Brimstones.

Let me join you, tactile,

Embrace you (just a hug),

Tell you that I made the effort – to learn your language –

I’m foraging.

Oh, I have trouble with the accent – it buzzes –

But if you could find a clerk to write it for me,

Your sentences I would understand

I imagine, and anyway so what,

Ah, just your hands let me thus grasp.