Avenir (Future)

The black poppies and faded cornflowers
In the lush hay which brightens the stable,
The yellowed letter in which my respectable
Grandfather made my grandmother old-fashioned vows,

The snuff-box where my great-uncle's nose
Was set, the backgammon board inlaid into the small table,
Enrapture me. So, in quantifiable
Time my lines will enrapture you, who are yet to rise.

Well, I am very much alive. The arriving breeze delivers me
A smell of hawthorn bloom and lilac,
The ring of my kisses covers the ring of the death knock.

O readers still to come, who live in the joy
Of being sixteen, of lilacs and first kisses,
Your passions pleasure my decaying bones.

Charles Cros
Translated from the French by John Kinsella
New England Review
Volume 26, Number 3 / 2005

Copyright © 2005 by Middlebury College Publications.
All rights reserved.
Reproduced by Poetry Daily with permission.

REMEMBER TO SUPPORT POETRY DAILY'S GENEROUS SPONSORS... Sponsor PD!