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To the « rose saints’, St Germaine
Cousin de Pibrac and
St Roseline de Villeneuve.
« Be open-handed also with the poor,
son that your own well-being may be complete.
Every living man appreciates generosity ;
do not withhold your kindness even a man is dead.
Do not turn your back on those who weep
but mourn with those who mourn ».
Ecclesiasticus 7 : 32-34
Flowers, flowers everywhere, flowers of light,
flowers in the soft air, flowers in my eyes,
pure roses carrying the grace of wings
towards a heaven always open to lips in prayer !
Sublime merci of Christ Omnipotent,
smiling, changing the book of atoms
into starry stems, cathedrals, domes,
and the scars of time into dizzing odes.
Lord, I pray you, fill my bleeding tongue
with your supreme brightness, with a perfect knowledge
of your boundless goodness, of your love which is
the origin of all things. May my poetry unite
in full consciousness with your tender charity,
with the agonies of the saints, with the cries of those who mourn !
Translated from French by Norton Hodges |
