One of 5 poems on impossble love: How his encounter with a young girl reminds an old men of a dead love.

Translated from the French.


Songs for a Moray: Memory

As years go by my tongue refrains
But unscathed is my memory.
One stem, hundred redundant drains
That drive on the sap it contains
Keep reviving my history

To the rock shrivelled by old age
Abandoned to love I was tied
And felt pains nothing could assuage
Till contemptible past was chased
Out by magic spells of a child

Phoenix who dies when you revive
Be alternately weal and woe
Blood-red flowers be hoards for hives
And may, rekindled, soar and thrive
The captive fire that's still aglow

A fire with no outset nor end
Keeps ablaze our innermost dreams
It would be a swindler's attempt
To set a limit to our trend
On shores that are but empty scenes

Smouldering flames be encouraged
They're wings that will once take away
The birds striving from age to age
To swap their abject caged bondage
For the hazards of liberty

*******************

Si les ans ont glacé les mots
Ils n'ont aboli ma mémoire
Un seul tronc pour mille rameaux
Et la sève en essors gémeaux
A réanimé mon histoire

Sur le vieux rocher racorni
A l'amour livré sans défense
D'où tous repos furent bannis
Ont chassé le passé honni
Les sortilèges de l'enfance

Phénix qui meure en renaissant
Sois tour à  tour bonheur et peine
Ouvre l'abeille aux fleurs de sang
Et que surgisse plus puissant
Le feu qui dormait sous le pêne

Un feu qui n'a germe ni fin
Habite aux gîtes de nos rêves
Et ce sont ruses d'aigrefin
De renommer termes et fins
Ces vains pays que sont nos grèves

Flamme couvant aux coeurs tapis
Est aile pour la délivrance
De l'oiseau qui n'a de répits
Qu'il n'ait d'âge en âge repris
Sa liberté dans la souffrance




Poetry by Michel Galiana
Read 1298 times
Written on 2007-11-27 at 11:33

Tags Time  Love  Galiana 

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