Not This Way

Forgive me. I was a schemer like many of those who steal by human habitations at night.

I reckoned the positions of guards before I dared approach closed borders.

Knowing more, I pretended that less would suffice, unlike those who give testimony,

Indifferent to gunfire, hue and cry in the brushwood, and mockery.

Let sages and saints, I thought, bring a gift to the whole Earth, not merely to language.

I protect my good name for language is my measure.

A bucolic, childish language that transforms the sublime into the cordial.

And the hymn or psalm of a choirmaster falls apart, only a canticle remains.

My voice always lacked fullness, I would like to render a different thanksgiving,

And generously, without irony which is the glory of slaves.

Beyond the seven borders, under the morning star.

In the language of fire, water and all the elements.