…infinitely varied foliage diversely stirred by the wind, then the motionlessness spreading over what lies in the distance, that movement of looking whereby the eyes ultimately peer all the way into what is imaginary. Words, like flowers, nourished by the streaming waters, and our very life bound somewhere to the lowest places, to horrible unfathomable depths with their buried lividness, yet also fed by a kind of freshness and suddenly responding to the stars by delicately blossoming into the shape of a rose or a star; suddenly dispersing a colour, a fragrance, in which the shadows and errors of life also nonetheless take part. The mystery of all things that rise from the earth, more or less with difficulty: flames, fan vaults, domes, vases, crowns, rockets, stars. Mystery of the multiple, of the uncountable. Dark and seemingly taciturn trees: cypresses; trees so close to the wind, feminine allies of the wind: acacias; privets surging forth from the earth with tranquil resolution and ever dripping wet, reflecting light; poplars and willows given a silvery sheen by the companionship of waters. How not be astonished?
Text by Phillipe Jaccottet, from “Patches of Sunlight, or of Shadow” translated by John Taylor, published by Seagull Books.
