become a world. All machines in the end join God's creation
growing bygone, given, changeless- but a river ferry has its
timeless mode
from the grinding reedy outset; it enforces contemplation .
We arrive. We traverse depth in thudding silence. We go on .
Yves Bonnefoy
II
And I think of the absent Kore, who picked
The flowers' shimmering black hearts
And fell , unawakened, drinking the blackness,
On the meadow of light, and of shade . I understand
This fault, which is death. The jasmine and asphodels
Are of our land . The banks
Of the shallow, limpid, green water make the shadow
Of the world's heart tremble . . . Yes, pick them.
The fault of the cut flowers is returned to us,
The soul is arched above some simple words,
The grisaille is lost among the ripe fruit.
The blade of the words of war is dispersed
In joyful, unchanging matter.
III
Yes , it is that.
A dazzling light in the ancient words.
Editor's Note: T hese poems are from the sequence "Dialogue of Anguish and Desire," ex–
cerpted from
Words
in
Slone
by Yves Bonnefoy . They are printed by permission of Random
House, Inc.
