lambeau par lambeau
à la déchéance des sables
puis vint pour la montagne
le temps de s’installer à l’horizon
lion décapité harnaché de toutes nos blessures
Rock Of The Sleeping Woman
or Beautiful as the Exasperation of Secession
Rocher de la femme endormie
ou Belle comme l’exaspération de la sécession
Survivor survivor
It is you the fallen one
Of a festival of volcanoes
Of a whirlwind of fireflies
Of a flare of flowers of a furor of dreams
Rescapée rescapée
C’est toi la retombée
D’un festin de volcans
D’un tourbillon de lucioles
D’une fusée de fleurs d’une fureur de rêves
Very pure far from all that jungle
The train of your revived hair
To the base of the solar barque
Exasperation of secession
Très pure loin de toute cette jungle
La traîne de tes cheveux ravivée
Jusqu’au fond de la barque solaire
Exaspération de la sécession
From time to time through the brightening
Sandy mist
Through the scarified games of the sky
I see her batting her eyelids
By way of letting me know she understands my signals
Which moreover are of distress over the very ancient
Sunfalls
De temps en temps à travers la brume de sable
Qui s’éclaircit
À travers les jeux cicatriciels du ciel
Je la vois qui bat des paupières
Histoire de m’avertir qu’elle comprend mes signaux
Qui sont d’ailleurs en détresse des chutes de soleil
Très ancien
Hers I do believe are alone in capturing them still
More than once I emboldened the wave
To cross the line that separates us always
But the dragon governs the cape of this prohibited water
Even if it is often as a harmless diving loggerhead
That comes up to breathe on the cursed surface
Les siens je crois bien être le seul à les capter encore
Plus d’une fois j’ai enhardi la vague
À franchir la limite qui nous sépare toujours
Mais le dragon gouverne le cap de cette eau interdite
Même si c’est souvent en inoffensif caret-plongeur
Qu’il survient respirer à la surface maudite
So what sacrificial bird today
To send you
Alors quel oiseau sacrificiel aujourd’hui
Te dépêcher
Survivor survivor
You my own exile and queen of the rubble
Phantom forever inapt at perfecting her realm
Rescapée rescapée
Toi exil mien et reine des décombres
Fantôme toujours inapte à parfaire son royaume
Favor of the Trade Winds
(prose for the sun)
Faveur des alizés
(prose pour le soleil)
It does not suffice.
Losing his head can make him nothing more than a morbid crab, while comfortably examining himself in the muted neighing of his rays. In that event it’s the wind that animates him, the wind, which also keeps him from becoming complacent to the heaviness of peoples.
Il ne suffit pas.
Il lui arrive perdant la tête de n’être qu’un crabe morbide, s’étudiant à son aise dans le hennissement sourd de ses rayons. Dans ce cas c’est le vent qui l’anime, le vent, et qui l’empêche de se complaire dans la lourdeur des peuples.
Of flowers, I shall declare that they concentrate on what no one suspects as being their scent.
That’s the trap.
The sun, weighs, poses.
The wind decomposes, disconcerts him, freedom.
Des fleurs, je dirai qu’elles se concentrent sur ce que personne ne soupçonne être leur parfum.
C’est le piège.
Le soleil, pèse, pose.
Le vent se décompose, le déconcerte, liberté.
For a Fiftieth Anniversary
Pour un cinquantenaire
for Lilyan Kesteloot
à Lilyan Kesteloot
Exceed exude exult Elan
Presence we must build your self-evidence
on pachira buttresses
on obelisks
on menfenil* craters
on sun rays
Excède exsude exulte Élan
il nous faut Présence construire ton évidence
en contreforts de pachira
en obélisque
en cratère pour menfenil
en rayon de soleil
on copaiba oil
little matter
on a caravel stern
on almadia* flotillas
on favelas
en parfum de copahu
peu importe
en poupe de caravelle
en flottille d’almadies
en favelles
on citadelles
on andesite ramparts
on piton entanglements
no matter
the wind a novice at memorializing meanders
en citadelles
en rempart d’andésite
en emmêlement de pitons
il n’importe
le vent novice de la mémoire de méandres
takes offense
that opened by my breath
of my breath it is sufficient
to signify to all
present and to come
that a man was there
s’offense
à vif que par mon souffle
de mon souffle il suffise
pour à tous signifier
présent et à venir
qu’un homme était là
and that he cried out
torch in the heart of nights
oriflamme in the heart of days
standard
simple extended hand
an unforgettable wound.
et qu’il a crié
en flambeau au cœur des nuits
en oriflamme au cœur du jour
en étendard
en simple main tendue
une blessure inoubliable.
Configurations
Configurations
for Jacqueline Leiner
à Jacqueline Leiner
1
murmur
of mangrove mustiness
of shredded shells
of flying seeds
rumeur
de remugle de mangles
de coques déchirées
de graines volantes
murmur of anchored seeds that know so well
how to invent the torture of a land
rumeur de graines ancreuses qui savent si bien
s’inventer le supplice d’une terre
(and too bad for those who do not understand
the ever to be rewound gravity of this game of
driftings and groundings)
(et tant pis pour ceux qui ne comprennent pas
la gravité toujours à remonter de ce jeu de
dérives et d’échouages)
predicted condescension of the buoys
hasty gallop from the depths of time
of all the startled beasts
condescendance du balisage annoncée
galop précipité du fond des âges
de toutes bêtes effarouchées
tongue of fire
the spoken word
the good exasperated viper of the tender milk of humanity
la langue de feu
le dire
la bonne vipère exaspérée du tendre lait des hommes
2
When I wake and feel myself a
ll mountain
no need to search. It’s understood.
More Pelée than time can explain.
Quand je me réveille et me sens tout montagne
pas besoin de chercher. On a compris.
Plus Pelée que le temps ne l’explique.
Other times I touch myself tatou, I attach myself
manifestly to the Caravelle peninsula, hugging
without beacon all lights extinguished
an ocean of false oil and of freebooting
D’autres fois à me tâter tatou, je m’insiste
de toute évidence en Caravelle, étreignant
sans phare tous feux éteints
un océan d’huile fausse et de flibuste
Sometimes a flowering canefield improvises me
head plumed.
Libra is not the right sign.
That’s because I expect the imminent arrival of a stunting
mildew.
Parfois c’est une cannaie en fleurs qui m’improvise
plumet en tête.
Balance ce n’est pas le bon signe.
C’est que j’attends l’imminente arrivée d’un mildiou
rabougrisseur.
My fine days are when,
without scrupules, a cynical furious whirlwind,
sneering from all the prey trapped in the talons of my eddies,
Mes beaux jours, c’est quand,
sans scrupule, furibond tourbillon cynique,
ricanant de toute proie enfermée dans la serre de mes remous,
I dash forward
blindly
mortally
amok.
je m’élance
aveugle
à mort
amok.
Now those are my glorious days
enraged
vengeful
Ça c’est mes jours glorieux
rageur
vengeur
3
Nothing ever frees but the obscurity of the word
The word of modesty and immodesty
The word of hard speech.
Rien ne délivre jamais que l’obscurité du dire
Dire de pudeur et d’impudeur
Dire de la parole dure.
Encoilment of the great thirst for being
spiral of the great need and the great return of being
knot of algae and entrails
knot of the flow and the ebb tide of being.
I almost forgot: the word of becalming too:
it is knotted the fury of not speaking.
Enroulement de la grande soif d’être
spirale du grand besoin et du grand retour d’être
nœud d’algues et d’entrailles
nœud du flot et du jusant d’être.
J’oubliais : le dire aussi d’étale :
c’est nouée la fureur de ne pas dire.
Torpor does not speak.
Thick. Heavy. Gross.
Rushed. Who dared?
in the end: engulfment.
At the bottom of the muck.
La torpeur ne dit pas.
Épaisse. Lourde. Crasse.
Précipité. Qui a osé ?
l’enlisement est au bout.
Au bout de la boue.
ah!
the only word is a burst of energy.
Break the muck.
Break.
To speak of a delirium allying the entire universe
to the uplift of a boulder!
ah !
il n’est parole que de sursaut.
Briser la boue.
Briser.
Dire d’un délire alliant l’univers tout entier
à la surrection d’un rocher !
4
This space scribbled on by too hasty lava
I give it over to Time
(Time which is nothing other than the
slowness of speech)
Cet espace griffonné de laves trop hâtives
je le livre au Temps.
(le Temps qui n’est pas autre chose que la
lenteur du dire)
the fissure
all wound
right to the bite of the inflicted moment
by the innocent insect
la fissure
toute blessure
jusqu’à la morsure de l’instant infligée
par l’insecte innocent
The very interstice that life did not fill in
everything will meet there
accumulated for the generous sand
L’interstice même que la vie ne combla
tout se retrouvera là
cumulé pour le sable généreux
Please recognize at the edge of the cave
a block of red jasper
assassinated by day
clot
Prière reconnaître à l’orée de la caverne
un bloc de jaspe rouge
assassiné de jour
caillot
NOTES ON THE POEMS
Notebook of a Return to the Native Land (1939)
We have numbered the stanzas so as to permit easy comparison with their position in the revised editions of Césaire’s long poem. Notes, signaled by a superscript ampersand (&) in the text, are identified by stanza number.
[4] the volcanoes will explode: In May 1902, Mt. Pelée exploded pyroclastically, burying the old colonial capital of Martinique, St. Pierre, which was never rebuilt. Metaphorically, volcanoes and explosions set up a network of apocalyptic images that run throughout the poem.
[8] Josephine . . . conquistador: Marie-Josephe-Rose Tascher de la Pagerie (1763-1814) was born into the planter class in Trois-Islets, Martinique. Her second husband, Napoleon Bonaparte, called her Josephine. Martinicans blame her for the reinstitution of slavery in 1802. Her statue, erected by Emperor Napoleon III in 1859, has frequently been decapitated in recent years. The “liberator” is Victor Schoelcher (1804-93), who championed the second abolition of slavery in the French empire by the revolutionary government in 1848. The “conquistador” is Pierre Belain d’Esnambuc (1585-1636), who claimed Martinique for France in 1635.
[10] morne: Lafcadio Hearn defined the term as “used throughout the French West Indian colonies to designate certain altitudes of volcanic origin. . .” (HTY, 254-55). The French word was derived from Spanish morro, a hillock.
[14] Capot River: The Capot empties into the Atlantic Ocean in Basse-Pointe, Martinique, where Césaire was born. Its course runs southeast of the plantation his father managed before entering the colonial tax department.
[15] Queen-Blanche-of-Castille: Daughter of Eleanor of Aquitaine, wife of Louis VIII of France and mother of Louis IX, Blanche (1188-1252) figured prominently in school history books. In the poem, she is a privileged figure of whiteness. See also [87].
[21] from Trinité to Grand-Rivière: From Césaire’s childhood home, Basse-Pointe, La Trinité lies to the South, Grand-Rivière to the North, facing Africa along the wild Atlantic coast.
[26] MERCI: THANK YOU; an ex-voto for an answered prayer.
[27] rue Paille: Literally, Straw Street; the poorest shacks in the colony lacked the solid roof of more prosperous houses.
[28] sand so black: The sand is black because of its volcanic origin; images of blackness reinforce the poverty of the population.
[31] the three-souled Carib: An allusion to the three aspects of being in Carib belief: anigi (vital force); iuani (immaterial being); afurugu (astral body). The astral body is an exact copy of the physical body, located midway between materiality and spirituality.
[32] this little ellipsoidal nothing: A derisive designation for Martinique, which is finger-like in shape. At only 1,128 sq. km., it is approximately six times the size of Washington, D.C. Located at 14.40 degrees North Latitude, it would appear to lie four fingers above the equator on a medium-sized wall map.
[34] where Death scythes widely: The image evokes the invasion of Spain from Africa by Franco’s tanks. The Spa
nish Civil War was ongoing during the composition of the “Cahier. . .,” and the threat of fascism reinforced the probability of renewed racial violence in the United States. Haiti, the beacon of negritude, had been occupied by the USA between 1915 and 1934.
[35] Bordeaux . . . San Francisco: All but the last city participated in the triangle trade: goods from French and British ports were traded for slaves on the African coast; slave ships traded their human cargo in the West Indies and the plantation economies of Atlantic America; rum and sugar were sent back to Europe from American and Caribbean ports. San Francisco seems to have been added for euphony and rhythm.
[36] a little cell in the Jura: Toussaint Louverture (1743-1803) was the foremost military hero of the Haitian revolution, which inflicted its worst defeat on France’s imperial army prior to the retreat from Russia in 1812. In the poem, Césaire focuses on Toussaint as a tragic hero, a black man tricked by his adversaries and imprisoned in the wintry whiteness of the Jura Mountains.
The Complete Poetry of Aimé Césaire Page 63