the house surrounded - jules supervielle

The House Surrounded
by Jules Supervielle (tr. Patricia Terry)

The mountain hesitates outside my window:

"How can I come in, if I am a mountain,

Extending as I do upwards, with rock and pebbles,

A piece of the Earth, and changing under the Sky?"

The foliage of woods surrounds my house:

"What have the woods to say about all this?

Our world spread out in branches, leafy world,

What can it do in that room with its white bed,

Where a candlestick is burning at its peak,

Close to the flower sipping from a glass?

What can it do for that man who leans on his arm,

For a hand which writes in the shelter of four walls?

Let us take counsel from our fragile roots,

He hasn't seen us, he searches within himself

For trees which understand what he has to say."

And the river: "This is no concern of mine;

For myself alone I flow and know nothing of men.

Wherever they find me I have already gone,

Always ahead of myself, I fear to linger.

Who cares for people who walk away on their legs--

They leave and they will return the way they came."

But the star says, "Trembling I hang by a thread;

I cease to exist if no one thinks of me."

flame point - jules supervielle

Flame Point
by Jules Supervielle (tr. Allen Mandelbaum)

All his life
He loved to read
By candlelight
And often passed
His hand across
The flame
In order to
Persuade
Himself that he
Was alive,
Was alive.

And since the day
He died,
He keeps
A burning candle
At his side,
And yet
His hands --
He hides.

prophecy - jules supervielle

Prophecy
by Jules Supervielle (tr. Jean Cassou)

One day the Earth will be only
A blind space turning,
Mingling night with day.
Under the great sky of the Andes
It will have no more mountains,
Not even a small ravine.

From all the houses of the world
Only one balcony will remain
And from the human map of the world
A sadness without bounds.
From the late Atlantic Ocean
A small taste of salt in the air,
One flying magical fish
Which will remember nothing of the sea.

From a carriage of 1905
(Four wheels and no road!)
Three young girls of that time
Remaining in the form of smoke
Will look out of the window
Believing Paris not far off
And they will smell nothing
But the smell of the sky which catches in your throat.

Where the forest was
A bird’s song will rise up
Which no one will place,
Nor prefer, nor even hear,
Except God. When He listens,
He’ll say: “It’s a goldfinch!”