translated by Richard Sieburth

Listen: how is it 
our troubled voice  
thus melds with the stars? 

On rungs of glass 
He has led it heavenward  
by the grace of his youthful art. 

* 

He has allowed us to hear ewes 
whose milk we’ve never drunk 
flock together in heaven’s summer dust. 

He has gathered them into the fold of night 
the hay agleam between the stones. 
The gate of sound swings shut 
as they feast on permanent delight. 
Do not believe he plucks an instrument 
of cypress or ivory as well might seem: 
what he holds in his hands is this Lyre 
with Vega its blue key. 

In whose clarity 
we no longer cast a shadow. 

* 

Think what this might mean to your ear 
you who listen for the night 
in this slow crystal rush 
of snow. 

* 

One imagines a comet 
returning after centuries 
from the kingdom of the deceased 
and crossing into ours tonight 
to sow the same seed. . . 

* 

This time the voyagers have no doubt 
as they pass beyond the final gate 
to see the Swan in full splendor 
overhead. 

* 

As I listen to you 
a candle’s reflection 
shimmers in the mirror  
flame aquiver 
with waterflow. 

Is this voice not the echo 
of another, more real? 
Will he whose ears are stopped 
against the executioner’s drab song 
hear it so? 
Will I? 

If and when they talk over our heads 
in the springtime of their constellated trees. 

* 

You are seated 
before the raised loom of this harp. 

Though invisible, I recognize you 
weaver of supernatural streams. 

---

Philippe Jacottet (1925-2021) was a major Swiss Francophone poet and translator of Hölderlin, Rilke, Mandelstam, and Ungaretti.  

Richard Sieburth was twice awarded the PEN prize for translation (for his versions of Nerval and Michaux). His latest translation is Michel Leiris’s Frail Riffs (Yale/Margellos).