Differentials: Poetry, Poetics, Pedagogy

tant d’absence

que tes yeux

s’approchent

de rien

Rosmarie Waldrop’s translation follows the original closely, even as she can
reproduce the page layout of the original to create a near match (143–44):

this patch of sky

henceforward

your inheritance

where the blind façade

of the church

curves inward

complicated

by a chestnut tree

here the sun

hesitates

leaves

some more

red

before the earth

emit

so much absence

that your eyes

approach

nothing

Lines like “tant d’absence / que tes yeux / s’approchent / de rien” can be
translated quite precisely: “so much absence / that your eyes / approach /

76 Chapter 4