Jean Follain

translated, from the French, by W. S. Merwin

Welcome

On the farm in its full color
it is on a day of bright sunlight
that one awaits the stranger.
Dressed in fine black fabric
and wearing a top hat
he will push the gate open
saying friends here I am.
The donkey nibbling the blue thistle
the mare in her dark gown
the pig drinking sour milk
the dog with the starred forehead
the cat who can sense a storm
before him will be the same
as in hard Antiquity.

Crossroads

The white sun of gardens
warms the invalids
high and dense a hedge
hides the place of the shootings
at the gates they talk
of the price of wheat
some go by carrying tools
stray hens pass
with dust on their wings
students with blood caked
on their deep scratches
open their eyes to see
all there is under the burning blue.

Meal Hour

One sees box leaves
around the frozen garden bed.
The lions are only in the psalms
whose latinity survives
but the dogs howl on the roads
men shout at them "be quiet"
hurrying indoors
for the hour of eating and drinking
has rung from the belfries.

Accidents

One evening stepping barefoot
on a nail
falling out of a tree
swallowing water that is too cold
are mortal accidents
imposed by ancient fate
so the world has no age
the sky remains intact and blue
nothing can keep the walls from drying.

The Admiralty

All its windows dark
its roofs glistening with rain
in a foreign town
the admiralty sheltered a woman
pressing her hands
against the bed post
with curtains the same red
as her invisible heart.
The soul was joined to this body
several more hours
few in those parts
believed in God.

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Jean Follain's (1903-1971) books include: Chants terrestres (1937), Ici-bas (1941), Transparence du monde (1943), Exister (1947), Territoires (1953), Des heures (1960), Appareil de la terre (1964), and D'apres tout (1967). W. S. Merwin has received the Tanning Prize for Mastery in the Art of Poetry, the Bollingen Prize, the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, the Lenore Marshall Prize for poetry, the Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Writers' Award, and the Governor's Award for Literature in the State of Hawaii, as well as fellowships from the Academy of American Poets (for which he was formerly a chancellor), the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Rockefeller Foundation. He is author of many books of poetry and translation. He and his wife live in Hawaii, where he cultivates rare and endangered palm trees. contents | previous | next