Benoni

(Gwerz e yezh poblek Bro-Dreger)

BENJAMIN

(Song in the popular language of the Treguier)

 

Not long ago behind the town square

There was a lovely beech tree

Whose bark bore deeply engraved

Letters and numbers

For all the men of the village

Had a long-standing tradition

To mark their names in the tree

Before leaving for the army.

 

When it came the turn of Benjamin

The widow's eldest son

He, too, engraved

On the tree his natal name

Almost as soon as he had left

The war was unleashed

And never again did

Benjamin return to his Brittany.

 

At dusk the grieving mother

Would go to reminisce

Beside the tree engraved

With her son Benjamin's name

But then came a day for woodcutters

With tools on their shoulders

They set down at the back of the square

To cut down the big beech tree.

 

The old tree was screaming

Under the teeth of the long saw

Her sap flowed out

Her long life was ended

When the mother heard the cracking

She ran out of her house

And showed the woodcutters

Her son Benjamin's name.

 

The woodcutters were kindly folk

Carefully and heedfully

With their saw they cut

That whole piece of wood

Respectfully carried the plaque

To the poor mother's house

And set it as a base

Under Benjamin's portrait.

 

June 1967.