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Someone is standing, singing in the
night,
passionately, lightly, with an ache that penetrates the soul!
Autumn leaves, replete with sunlight,
unhook themselves from the branches
and fall sparkling, spinning, swimming
in the soundless watercolour of the air.
No, my brother,
I'm not sad!
The shadows are light as the down of a
daisy
and full of tiny seeds of love,
while memory, like a mystical pomegranate,
like a gift from heaven,
offers itself to our lips.
No, my brother,
I'm not sad!
I've left the house wide open:
stars and murmurings,
nasturtiums and oleanders
fall into this infinite peace!
It's waiting for you to arrive, the quiet harmony
of your soul the colour of honey and summer days,
your child's breath, the intense green of your eyes
which falls inexorably
onto my face!
No, my brother,
I'm not sad!
Our vast house, our ancestral kingdom,
with the incantatory fragrance of old wardrobes,
scented with aromatic herbs, ambergris
and voluptuous yellow quinces!
No, my brother,
I'm not sad!
Come to me this night, climb
through the spidery silence of the ancient staircase,
make the luminous waves, the leaping sea spray,
the unwithering laughter, the candid cries
of our divine adolescence
beat against the gold of my veins!
No, my brother,
I'm not sad!
Is it true, as Orpheus says,
that now you're tasting the delights
of the world of blessed shadows?
Are you drinking in Empedocles' starlight,
the ethereal light
we cannot see though we understand how stars revolve?
Can you hear, sailing among the gleaming stars,
the eternal melody of the spindle of the Fates
which weaves itself into the universe through and through?
No, my brother,
I'm not sad!
But just for a brief moment
let my tears wash the dust of the years
from my face!
Let the Etesian winds
comb the snow of my hair
and let them bring, before they depart
for the heart of Africa,
the last surges of swallows
guardians of the pure in heart!
No, my brother,
I'm not sad!
translated from the
French of Athanase Vantchev de Thracy by Norton Hodges
21.09.06.
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