I can’t tell how my poems begin:
with the wind,
or a sort of music,
a memory
without body or shape?
I know that I continue them,
with joy, with pain:
I add a syllable,
I delete a verb that is too heavy,
I want them to be full of mystery.
I am at their service,
as long as they allow me to be.
They have the right, of course,
in their glory,
to whisper, “Thanks,” and send me off.
I can’t tell how my poems end:
with new wind,
new music,
a memory without shape or body,
a new poet I have never met.
~Alain Bosquet, ‘The Chain’, translated from the French by William Jay Smith
photo: f/v dusky rock sits at the ready in the harbor, a fresh powdering of snow across her loaded dock lines, from winter 2011.