The Yale Anthology of Twentieth-Century French Poetry

SALAH STÉTIÉ

three dead herrings
and four trees there.
—edward lucie-smith

Salah Stétié 1929–

beirut, lebanon

S

tétié is a poet, essayist, art critic, and diplomat. In Beirut he founded the

cultural weekly L’Orient littéraire, which he directed from 1956 to 1961.

The review forged an important link between literary innovations in the

West and those nascent in Oriental and Arabic writing. He served as a permanent

delegate from Lebanon to UNESCO (1965–1982), as ambassador to Morocco

(1985), and later as a diplomat to The Hague. In 1995 he received the Grand Prix

de la Francophonie, given by the Académie française. Principal works: L’Eau

froide gardée, 1973; Fragment: Poème, 1978; Inversion de l’arbre et du silence, 1980;

L’Autre Côté brûlé du très pur, 1992; Fièvre et guérison de l’icône, 1998.

The Garden of the One

The snail is necessary the bindweed is necessary
The cold leaves and their dew
The walls too placed in the light
And our hands’ weaving in the light
Beneath the etched white angle of the almond trees
Where our stalemates sleep a while—all that
Our breathing
Launched into the infinite to drown itself and dissolve us

Here I am. ‘‘The moon is my child’’ (the moon?)
As it was once said
My nocturnal one so tender in outbursts
Very gently, my spouse, my daughter