The Yale Anthology of Twentieth-Century French Poetry

JACQUES ROUBAUD

Meditation of 8/5/85

Evening after evening
A vector of light crosses
This same windowpane
And fades
Night
Carries it o√ to
Where you
Invisible
Adapt to denseness
—rosmarie waldrop

Light, for Example

Light, for example. black.
Panes.
Closed mouth. opens to the tongue.
Windows. chalked in rows.
Breasts. farther down. the hand approaches. enters.
Spreads
Parted lips. on knees.
A lamp, there. wet.
The eye overflows.
—rosmarie waldrop

In This Tree

Come down and sleep in this tree, in this tree.
Push back the earth in this tree, in this tree.
Scoop out the earth in this tree, in this tree.
Disinvent the dark in this tree, in this tree.
Rebuild your legs in this tree, in this tree.
Decline the dust in this tree, in this tree.
Cut the light in this tree, in this tree.
Fill the orbits in this tree, in this tree.
Write, write yourself alive in this tree.
—rosmarie waldrop

A Way I

in a way i would not
to proceed. but first refute