Poetic Allusions · Un P'tit Je Ne Sais Quoi

« You who never arrived in my arms, Beloved, who was lost from the start, I don't even know what songs would please you. I have given up trying to recognize you in the surging wave of the next moment. All the immense images in me— the far-off, deeply-felt landscape, cities, towers, and bridges, and unsuspected turns in the path, and those powerful lands that were once pulsing with the life of the gods— all rise within me to mean you, who forever elude me. You, Beloved, who is all the gardens I have ever gazed at, longing. An open window in a country house, — and you almost stepped out, pensive, to meet me. Streets that I chanced upon,— you had just walked down them and vanished. And sometimes, in a shop, the mirrors were still dizzy with your presence and, startled, gave back my too-sudden image. Who knows? Perhaps the same bird echoed through both of us yesterday, separate, in the evening... »

« I am. O Anxious One . Don't you hear my voice surging forth with all my earthly feelings? They yearn so high, that they have sprouted wings and whitey fly in circles, around your face. My soul, dressed in silence, rises up and stands alone before you: can't you see? Don't you know that my prayer is growing ripe upon your vision as upon a tree? If you are the dreamer, I am what you dream. But when you want to wake, I am your wish. And I grow strong with all magnificence and turn myself into a star's vast silence above the strange and distant city, — Time. »

❝ extinguish my eyes, i'll go on seeing you; seal my ears, i'll go on hearing you; and without feet, i can make my way to you, without a mouth, i can swear your name; break off my arms, i'll take hold of you, with my heart as with a hand; stop my heart, and my brain will start to beat; and if you consume my brain with fire, i'll feel you burn in every drop of my blood ❞