Saturday, March 13, 2010

PAUL VALERY:MORNING

(Waking)

How gentle the light at waking, how lovely this living blue!
The word "Pure"opens my lips.
That is the name I give you.
Here, linked to the day that never yet has been, are the
perfect thoughts that will never be...
The Universal is a seed, the Universal experienced
without particulars, the Universal awaking sketchily in gold,
unblemished yet by individual affect.
I am born every where, far from this
Identity, in every sparkling light upon this hem, this fold,
the edge of this thread, that mass of lucent water. As yet
and effortlessly you are no more than a delicious effect
of light and expectation, a miracle of fire silk smoke
and slate, a complication of simple noises,
O Day!
...Why this morning should I choose myself? Why
must I shoulder again my goods and ills? Suppose
I were to abandon my name, my faiths, my habits,
and my chains, like the dreams of night, as one
who wishing to disappear and begin again,
leaves his clothes and passport at the waters edge?
(from POEMS IN THE ROUGH translated
from the French by Hilary Corke)

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