I who was born to believe in the power of law
                                 was maquis at heart.
I who wrote that a tapestry stretched to the moon

     The slippery piglet, clear across the way,
has had my tree cut down.
He rang a man who rang a man who knew

When I was green,
Green as the light beneath these leaves,
I used to say:

The backward glance forbidden in the mind,
Uncertain, gentle, and without impatience

Soon I was born a little past
  The celebrations on the Champ de Mars.
    Now who can recognize himself?

  Where the rock divides among the mosses
    And the myrtle weaves its crown.

1.

In retrospect I'd been waiting
For years, never speaking.
Never needing to learn. I listened

The newborn bear has no shape.
The mule rarely gives birth,
The viper only once.

Once, in a room no bigger than the bed, 
I made love with a girl.

                                                *

Have you ever made love with a girl?   
Once I hadn’t, then I had.

Of the vastness of clouds
We knew nothing;
We slept in houses underground.