The Yale Anthology of Twentieth-Century French Poetry

MOHAMMED DIB

tinues to reside. He is also a successful novelist. Principal works: L’Ombre gar-

dienne, 1961; Formulaires, 1970; Omneros, 1978; Feu, beau feu, 1979; Ô vive, 1987;

L’Enfant jazz, 1998; Le Coeur insulaire, 2000.

To a Voyager

to Pierre Seghers

1. place of memory

between the houses of the day
and the fires of last-hand
surf of splendors on the hills
whose ash spreads memory
the season blazed behind you
the sun peeled looking for you
it’s the time of spreading soot
and archipelago, black and lost
in doubt hastens to blow out
the last lit lamp
that wanders in the dunes of the north

2. to live

the gold of fatigue, perhaps
the candid arm mute further on

the interval of a snowfall
announced to devouring screams

this dream of truth perhaps
its dawn with she-wolf hands

you are going with other gestures
to receive your exile from a whiteness
inhabited by a few birds
—ronnie scharfman