Tuesday, March 18, 2014

Tours Elegy

If all knowledge is recollection, if the play
of sunlight on a wall, an uneven paving stone,
the curve of a narrow street one followed
without a thought in mind, if
anything could tear
the soul from sleep and you
could feel it in yourself, strange
and pounding with impatience, as Ficino said
in his commentary on The Banquet, if all
becomes allegory, where does that leave us,
and in what time?


 

From "Tours Elegy," a beautiful poem by Quebec poet Robert Melançon, author of For As Far As the Eye Can See, translated by Montreal writer Donald McGrath, and posted on the translation blog earlier today.





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