We present this work in honor of the poet’s 120th birthday.

 

You who go every Sunday to the Botanical Garden
and while away hours in silence, contemplating
the sumptuous colourings of flowers
that you will never have in your own little garden ;
you who ask fascinating things so ingenuously
and explain to me the fantastic ambient of your dreams ;
you who love like a child the leaves of the mint
for the clean memories that its scent awakens;
you who talk about the glittering enamels
of exotic insects that blossom in the air;
you who tell the life of Jean-Jacques, and know
that under a clear sky he cuts herbs at close of day;
you who dress in white for the Month of Mary
and people the silence with images of peace:
because you were my beloved you will lay on my tomb,
when I am dead, lilacs of dark splendour.

Translation by Richard O’Connell