PHILIPPE JACCOTTETThe ravine where I sleep a deeply rooted furnace
This day in night opens the wound that made us
***I do not write to take you by surprise but to give measure to this flood of impa-
tience that the wind names your beauty. Far away, clay sky, and ancient silt, real
And the water of my words flows, until the rock stops it, when I come down
the stream among the moons that strut along the bank. There where your smile is
the color of the sands, your hand more naked than a vow pronounced in silence
***And it is only ash settled in the underbrush
It is only straying where the sky gives birth
The agave water does not appease the timid flower
The stars sing of a single gold that is unheard
At the crossroads where the sap was beaten out
Of so many who cry out inspired by the wind
I hail unexpected wandering
You go out from speech, slip away
You are the country of the past given in recompense
Invisible we travel the road
The earth alone understands
—brent hayes edwards
Philippe Jaccottet 1925–
moudon, switzerland
A
noted translator, Jaccottet has rendered in French works by Homer,
Rainier Maria Rilke, Robert Musil, and Thomas Mann, as well as the
complete works of Friedrich Hölderlin. He first began translationwork while living in Lausanne, Switzerland. In 1953 he moved to Grignan, in
southern France. His own writing combines the principles and lessons of literary
criticism and translation and depicts humans in relation to elements in the