Doureier

WATERS

 

Rain on Brittany. Rain

Night and day, no peace

No surcease

The earth's drowned.

The Sowing threatened.

Ditches turned to pools

Roads to canals

The stream to a waterfall.

The valley's hum

The landscape's élan.

Raised from its great bed

The black-hued Leger

On each side grows wider

Its waters inflated

Yellowed

With the clay of muddy ports.

Reddish-yellow water.

Movement on the river

The sluice-gate booms

Spray and foam

Rise in the air

The meadow's a lagoon

The mill an island

The uprooted alders on the bank lean a-slant

The masts of sunken boats

On the old Roman bridge

Its four stone arches

Still in line

(labor of another time)

Two men are chatting without a care:

The salmon, they say, will come up there

Fishermen ... Ecstatic.

 

Chandelour [2 February] 1965