Dunes
The dune is a wasteland. Like in a haiku, the ephemeral and the eternal, the infinitesimal and the infinite mingle and take shape there, according to the four elements. The sea weaves the sand, which will remain stone at its core, the wind and the sun's shadow tirelessly mold it, the night sublimates everything in a knowing silence. The most rebellious and rugged grasses and shrubs grow there, the most disparate creatures and insects live there, hares, sheep, ruminants; humans linger there little. It could be a mirror, it is a screen of light for a day of slowness.
I didn't know Silence
I tamed it.
I had listened to him as a distant friend
Back home by mistake from a misunderstood war
He seemed to me alone,
Exiled, unknown.
I stared at him
In the ebb of the waves
The slow return of the snow
The ochre and joyful scent of the forest
The intimacy of the desert
In its haunting heat
The rarity of mirages
Infinitely loose, superimposed
Insinuation of the horizon.
A comma has landed on the window
A caress continues...
I read it again, blinded
Dazzled with rage by its provocation
A blank page
Which refuses to write in order not to know
And remain a virgin
Free of discovery
Offered as much as possible
How, who doesn't know how to say
Why, who doesn't know how to do
His letters have soothed me.
Like a drop on the sand
Extinguishes its most faithful echo
It has come to confuse me with the night
To open me to its memories
To cover me with its abstinence that purifies dreams
To initiate me to the confidence of its rebirths
It has demineralized me
Inexorable patience
Humility and wisdom.
Without expectation or regret
Trusting in the disinterest of time
I spoke to the Silence
And he answered me.
Alone
The wind dares to defy
The shadow of the dune
Alone
The sand befriends eternity
Infinitely tiny stone
Some time, somewhere
Some cries, some glances
some way, some chance
Some regret, some delay
Some wind, some rain
Some falsehood, some forgetfulness
Some smile, some boredom
Some light, some noise
(All the poems translated from French by the Author)