My American Friends
If it's true that old wood is better to light a fire ...
If it's true that an old horse is better to ride...
If it's true that an old book is a better read ...
If it's true that an old wine is better to drink and savor...
It's also true that it's better to have an old friend.
Let’s be children of the desert!
The desert is so vast, immense and all in abundance.
The space is to be written.
The space us to be filled
The children of the desert already know more than we.
Their instinct keeps them aware.
Let’s be children of the desert!
They are not locked in, prisoners of their habits, of their roots, of their desert.
The move forward along familiar trails.
They are continually on the move.
They know how to change routes.
Their compass is a water hole.
The underground mystery of a spring which waits for them to flow and quench their thirst.
Let’s be children of the desert!
They reject the illusions of mirages.
They know that an oasis is just a passageway.
They know nothing of a Promised Land.
They have their feet the ground, on this earth.
Let’s be children of the desert!
They are not engaged in Wandering.
They are engaged in Hopefulness.
And if it were enough for us
Like the strings of a cello
To vibrate at the least whisper of a springtime breeze
And if it were enough for us
Like the ears of a doe sheltering in the woods
To know how to wait for and listen to silence
And if it were enough for us
Like the eyes of a child
To be amazed, dazzled just for a split second
By the improbable trajectory of a shooting star
And if it were enough for us
At each dawn, at each twilight moment
Like the wandering poet, to sit down on a stone wall
To get drunk on the smell of new-mown hay
And if it were enough for us
To know that our spirit is free
That nothing, no one can keep it captive
That the only barriers are the endlessness of hawthorn hedges
Or of eagle flights above the cliffs
And if it were enough for us
To know the happiness of getting lost, of going astray
In the middle of nowhere, in the middle of our dreams
At the outposts of the stars
Holding the hand of our children
Of our simple futures, our hopes
And if it were enough for us
To learn how to grasp what’s ephemeral
In a wink, without warning
In a simple wave of a hand
As when one must take leave
Just to pin our moments of happiness
On our lapel, on our memory
And if it were enough for us
To take life as it comes
To enjoy peaceful days
To learn how to remain naïve
Far from the shilly-shallying of a world going awry
And if it were enough for us
To know that we are simply alive
The Strange Choice of Chance
If by chance, on a summer’s evening, the fleeting splotches of a golden light landed on your arms,
I hope you’ll let them touch you.
If by chance, drafts, wafts of melancholy air tried to close you in
I hope you’ll let them pass you by
If by chance, on a cold winter morning, crimson fog came in to surround you
I hope you’ll let it wrap you up
If by chance the dull roar of the surf tried to lure you towards the ravines
I hope you’ll continue on your way
I hope that you’ll arrive wherever it be, always curious and always gourmand.
I hope you’ll suddenly have nothing more to say, nothing more to tell.
I hope you’ll say that what happens to you is the luck that was due to happen to you
I hope you’ll choose the luck which you have chosen to bring about.
Let chance surprise you!
I hope you’ll choose to "rendez-vous "with the luck of chance.
I hope you’ll see it from afar, appearing like a mirage,
Like a faint and almost shapeless silhouette,
Like a blurred splotch advancing toward you.
I hope you’ll see it grow slowly larger,
Regularly.
This trembling,
Evanescent chance.
Step by step.
Your steps, its steps.
I hope you’ll see it as though through an icy fogged window
I hope you’ll be astonished, dazzled, captivated.
I hope you’ll be flustered
Staggered
I wish you the strange choice of chance for this year fast approaching.
Jean Humenry
My Words
There are words as gray as the fog.
There are words as wild as the wind.
There are the tender words of a moon music.
There are the words of sun as warm as the bread one shares.
There are the words which play the fool and appear to take everyone for a ride.
There are the words which know a lot more than they appear to.
And it's like that that the stories are born.
Like that, quite simply...
Those islands are far away, those islands in time where I was only a child.
They are way over there, I think, far ahead, on the ocean of before, bathed by the waters of my tender years.
I don't know how to go back, so I have to go forward, and since the Earth is round...
So I am going forward like this...
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