no one any longer recalls the Vaurs and the Divat
the stream Siou Sujou Suzou and everyone
for whom those were the names they have all become
the stream of Lherm we do not speak the same language
from one generation to another we
can tell little of places where we ourselves have lived
from the beginning and still less of neighborhoods
where our parents were young or the parents of our friends
how can we say what the sound of the voices was or what
the skins felt like and those mouths everything that the mouths did
the tongues the ears the eyes the animals the fur
the warmth as they breathed not far from here an unknown
mason dug up a sword five hundred years old
the only thing that is certain about it now
is that in the present age it is devoured with rust
something keeps going on without looking back
Commemoratives
This was the day when the guns fell silent one time
on old calendars before I was born thell the bells
clanged to say it was over forever again
and again as they would every year when the same
hour had found the yellow light in the poplars
tan leaves of sycamores drifting across the square
out of the world and those who remembered the day
it was first over sat around tables holding
reflections in their hands thinking here we arc
while the speeches reverberated in their faces
here we are we lived these arc our faces now we are singing
these arc ourselves standing out under the same trees
smoking talking of money we are the same we lived
with our moustaches our broadening features our swellings
at the belt our eyes from our time and in that chill air
of November with its taste of bronze I took the winding
road up the mountain until it hissed in the chestnut forest
where once the hunters had followed the edge of the ice
I came to sounds of a stream crossing stones a hare moving like
one of the shadows jays warning through bare branches
the afternoon was drawing toward winter the signposts
at the crossroads even then were rusted over
