Poesies

Aux captifs, aux vaincus, à bien d’autres, encor…

Baudelaire

Now that the mighty arms of the furies raze

to the ground the city of ideals we wanted to build,

under the ruins of buried dreams, closer to the soil,

Motherland, protect us: —the earth will never lie…

Among so many strange cries, may your pure voice

address us. There is little other consolation left

but to believe and hope for the new architecture

with which freer arms will bless your land.

If one could only forget the toppling city!

Distant, more beautiful, there is another, perhaps,

that sends us, over and above this shackled time,

heartbeats of faith and air, the tough bronze voice

that from high towers spreads down the paths

uplifting hearts and warming the feet of pilgrims.