Soft

[rejectomorph]

Midnight brought mist which dampened leaves and pavements and rooftops, gathered there in drops which fell to make soft sounds, and gave the clouded night both a voice and an ethereal sheen. Mist gave way to sprinkles, and sprinkles to the slow, steady rain that now drums the wet soil and splashes in gathering puddles. The smell of it is pure delight. I leave my windows open to sound and scent, and the chill air runs down the walls, making me shiver. I am not eager to crawl under the blankets, despite the cold. This wet night is to be savored, though it be the first of many that this season will bring. It has been too long since rain has fallen. There will be time to grow weary of it later in the year. Now, I celebrate the stream the downspout disgorges, and wait for gray dawn to reveal my world transformed.



Sunday Verse

Of No Age

by Paul Eluard


We are close now
In the forests
Follow the street of the morning
Go up the steps of the mist

We are close now
The Earth's heart is beating faster

Another day to bring into the world.


The sky will be growing larger
We were tired
Of living in sleep's ruins
In the low shadow of rest
Of fatigue of relaxing

The Earth will assume the shape of our living bodies
We will force ourselves on the wind
The sun the night will pass into our eyes
And never change them

Our sure space our pure air will suffice
To close the hiatus habit wedged in time
We shall enter upon a trackless memory
Together we shall speak a sensitive language.


O my opposite brothers who keep within your eyes
Pervasive night and its horror
Where did I leave you behind
With your heavy hands in the slow lazy oil
Of acts gone by
With so little hope that death is justified
O my lost brothers
As for me I'm going toward life I look like a man
To prove that the world is custom-made for me

And I'm not alone
A thousand images multiply my light
A thousand similar glances sooth the flesh
It's the bird the child the rock the plain
Becoming one with us
The gold laughs to find itself out of the depths
Water and fire go nude for just one season
The brow of the universe bears no eclipse.


Hands to our hands familiar
Lips as one with our lips
With the first warmth of flowers
And the quickening blood allied
The prism is breathing with us
Abundant dawn
On the tips of the grasses queen
On the summits of moss on the crest of the snows
Of waves of astonished sands
Of lingering childhoods
Far beyond all the caves
Beyond ourselves.

-translated by Patricia Terry