Mute Objects of Expression
Page 6
Leaving nothing on the resilient ocher carpet
Of aromatic hairpins
Loosed above by masses of indolent treetops
But a peignoir of shadow splashed with sunlight
Obliquely woven of sleepless atoms.
Another
The alpine brushery high-tufted in green bristles
With crimson wood handles set about by mirrors:
Did Venus comb her hair there, come from the bath,
Marine or lacustrian, that steams by the low-lying shoulder?
– There remains a peignoir of shade splashed with sunlight
On the resilient depth of ocher ground
Of aromatic hairpins
Loosed above by masses of indolent treetops,
And ribbons woven of sleepless atoms.
Another
The alpine brushery high-tufted in green bristles
With crimson wood handles set about by mirrors.
Of the glistening body risen from the bath,
Marine or lacustrian, that steams by the low-lying shoulder,
On the deep resilient ocher ground
Of aromatic hairpins
Loosed above by masses of indolent treetops,
Remains a peignoir of shade splashed with sunlight
Obliquely woven of sleepless atoms.
Another
In this brushery high-tufted in green bristles
With crimson wood handles set about by mirrors,
Of you, radiant body come from the bath,
Marine or lacustrian, that steams by the low-lying shoulder,
There remains on the resilient ocher carpet
Of aromatic hairpins
Loosed above by masses of indolent treetops,
But a peignoir of shadow splashed with sunlight
Obliquely woven of sleepless atoms.
August 31, 1940
Sunlight in the Pine Woods
The alpine brushery with tufts of green bristles,
With crimson wood handles set about by mirrors . . .
Should Phoebus appear there, come from the bath,
Marine or lacustrian, that steams by the low-lying shoulder
Nothing would remain – on the resilient ocher carpet
Of the aromatic hairpins
Loosed above by masses of indolent treetops –
But a peignoir of shadow splashed by sunlight
(Var.)
But shadow enlivened by atoms of sunlight
Contantly crisscrossed by sleepless flies.
Variation
Through this brushery with tufts of green bristles,
With tooled handles set about by mirrors,
Marine or lacustrian, that steams by the low-lying shoulder
On the deep resilient ocher ground
Of aromatic hairpins
Loosed above by masses of indolent treetops.
Nothing remains but shadow splashed with sunlight
And ribbons woven of sleepless atoms
Of Sunlight in the Pine Woods
In this brushery high-tufted in green bristles
With crimson wood handles set about by mirrors
Which a radiant body enters come from the bath,
Marine or lacustrian, that steams by the low-lying shoulder,
No weave of sleepless flies remains
On the deep resilient of ocher ground
Of aromatic hairpins
Loosed above by masses of indolent treetops
But a peignoir of shadow splashed with sunlight.
Plaintive flies or Sunlight in the Pine Woods
Within this brushery high-tufted in green bristles
With crimson wood handles set about by mirrors
Should a radiant body enter come from the bath,
Marine or lacustrian, that steams by the low-lying shoulder
Nothing would remain to tell of sleepless flies
On the deep resilient ocher ground
Of aromatic hairpins
Loosed above by masses of indolent treetops
But a peignoir of shadow splashed with sunlight.
Francis Ponge,
La Suchère, August 1940
Variation
Line 3: Of the glistening body just come from the bath
Line 5: Nothing remains . . .
September 2, 1940
NOTA BENE
If this variation is adopted, and allowing that the distichs WW and OM and the triplet OOL are invariable, their order and that of the lines N and B become freely interchangeable, though B must in any case always be placed after N.
These are the invariable elements:
Starting with this, one can lay out the elements ad libitum as follows:
1 2 3 4 5 1 4 2 3 5
1 2 4 3 5 1 4 3 2 5
1 2 3 5 4 1 4 3 5 2
1 3 2 4 5
1 3 5 4 2 2 3 4 5 1
1 3 4 2 5 2 4 3 5 1
1 3 2 5 4
1 3 5 2 4 2 3 1 4 5
1 3 4 5 2 etc.
However the sequence 4 – 2 is inadvisable (of aromatic hairpins of the glistening body . . . )
NONE OF THIS SHOULD BE TAKEN SERIOUSLY
None of this should be taken seriously.
What have I achieved in the course of these sixteen pages (pp. 91 to 106) and these ten days? – Not a whole lot for the pains I’ve taken.
Only this:
1. that the pine woods seem to be set about by mirrors, by hand mirrors (but this is already noted on pages 89 – 90);
2. the expression high-tufted, which is just right;
3. that the hairpins are “loosed above by masses of indolent treetops,” which is quite pretty, gives a rather good picture of the lazy swaying of the pine summits. But I’ll have to look up négligent, indolent, in the Littré . . .
4. the image of the dressing gown, the word peignoir itself is right in speaking of Venus, since it is what’s put on before combing one’s hair, se peigner;
5. entaché, splashed, which gives the right impression of shade splashed with sunlight, because it includes a pejorative sense, an indication of imperfection in the subject, which is valuable;
6. AND ABOVE ALL, the idea, the awareness of this reality: of the sunlight seen through the pine woods nothing remains but shadow, some taut-strung oblique ribbons, and sleepless flies.
If I’ve achieved no more than this in ten days of uninterrupted and relentless effort (I can certainly claim that much), then I’ve wasted my time. I’d even be tempted to say, the time of the pine woods. For after an eternity of nonexpression in the mute world, it is eager to be expressed now that I have given it this hope, or a foretaste.
Why this disorder, this derailment, this distraction? Once again – after managing to come up with the little prose poem on pages 91 – 95 – I recalled Paulhan’s statement: “From now on, the prose poem is no longer for you . . .” and I wanted to make this prose poem into one done in verse. While instead I should have taken apart the prose poem to integrate its interesting elements into my objective relations (sic) with the pine woods.
Paulhan was certainly right. But my intention here is not to make a poem, rather to move ahead in the understanding and expression of the pine woods, to gain something for myself there – instead of beating my brains out and wasting my time over it as I’ve done.
NOTE
In passing I must note a problem to think through again when I have the leisure: that of the difference between knowledge and expression (relationship and difference). It’s a vast problem, as I’ve just realized. In brief, this is what I mean to say: the difference between the expression of the concrete, the visible, and the knowledge or expression of the idea, of the essential differentiating and comparative quality of the subject. To put it more cogently: in some poems (all of them botched): the frog, the dancer, particularly the bird, the wasp nest, and this last (the sunlight in the pine woods), I practice expressionism (?), I mean that after rediscovering them, I employ the most precise words
to describe the subject. But my intention is something other than that: it’s the basic understanding of the pine woods, by that I mean the isolation of the inherent distinguishing qualities of these woods, and what I have called its lesson. To me these seem to be two quite different things, though ordinarily at the far limits of perfection for each one, they must come together again...
So let’s return as quickly as possible to the search for everything that can be said about pine woods and only of them.
Here again there are distinctions:
Primo, it is clear that the woods or the forest each have a particular quality and that I often tend to stray on this point.
But this time I won’t go seriously astray for the pine woods clearly possess all the qualities of the woods and forests in general, plus individual features as pine woods. Just realizing that is enough to keep me from straying too far.
(In fact, if I do stray off in my pine woods, that will be only half bad, it will even be a good thing, for the woods are clearly propitious places for erring, or for error, there’s some labyrinth in all woods.)
Secundo, there are qualities inherent to the pine, and qualities particular to the pine as a part of pine woods. The pine differs according to whether it lives in isolation or in society. It differs also according to whether it is situated in the interior or at the fringe of the woods of which it is a part. And I rather like those pines at the edge, held to certain sacrifices in their parts turned toward the woods, but free to develop as they please to the side facing the fields, the void, the un-wooded world.
The function of bordering their society falls to them, to conceal the arcana, to conceal the interior nakedness (the austerity, the sacrifice, the lack) through the spread of their lower parts: they must be less exigent about
They are permitted to maintain the memory and display of their earlier outgrowths. They even live through these outer tips as much as through their peaks (oh how badly I’m saying this).
September 3, 1940
If the individuals on the fringes (orée, fringes or lisière, forest edge: words to verify in the Littré) do a pretty fair job of hiding the interior from the eyes of the exterior, they fail quite badly at hiding the exterior from the eyes of the interior. They behave like a glass partition, or rather (since they aren’t translucent) like a partition of cloth, of stone, or of carved wood.
When the wood is vast or dense enough, from its core the sky cannot be seen laterally, one must move towards the fringe, to the point where the partition no longer appears impervious. Now there’s something that would be sublime if put to use in a cathedral: a forest of columns such that one would progressively reach total obscurity (the crypt).
And yet this is truly more or less what is realized in the woods, for though ultimately there is no wall, the monument breathes through all its pores in the very midst of nature, better than a lung, as though with gills.
It could even be said that this should be a criterion of achievement, the mark of this genre of architecture: the point where total obscurity would be realized, taking into account for example that between each column there must be allowance for a space of x width, to accommodate easy strolling, etc.
Generally speaking, what is a forest? Both a monument and a society. (As a tree is both a being and a statue.) A living monument and an architectural society. But are trees social beings? Note that some trees are more predisposed than others to live in society. By the weight of their seeds, therefore minimally transportable by the wind and destined to fall at the foot of the father or not far off. Such as notably the pine cone, the acorn, all the trees with heavy fruit: apple, orange, pear, lemon, apricot, almond, date, and olive trees.
Others are disposed through the enormous quantities of flowers, hence of seeds, so that inevitably a certain number stay at the foot: I’m thinking of acacias.
The trees with small berries tend less toward this because clearly it is birds that are charged with their dissemination: cherry, service berry, etc.
Others are visibly predisposed to a more or less solitary life by the indubitably Aeolian nature of their seeds: notably the maples (coupled).
So, as far as our pine is concerned, it is probably a social tree by nature. How far is the seed propelled at the moment when the pine cone opens (does it burst abruptly like the pods of its cousin the broom)? Has anyone even measured this distance? How does this affect the pine as a social tree? Would we speak about its rights and obligations? Why not? Obligations: that of limiting its freedom of outgrowth to that of its neighbors; it is in fact forced by them to do just that, and the force of an individual doesn’t seem to count for much here, though its age evidently does so to a great extent: there is a priority conferred by age, etc.
September 4, 1940
With the pine, there is an abolition of their successive expansions (particularly with the woods pine), which fortunately corrects, annuls, the customary curse of vegetation: having to live eternally with the weight of each action taken from childhood on. For this tree more than others, it is permissible for it to separate itself from earlier expansions. It has permission to forget. It’s true that the subsequent developments bear strong resemblance to the former cast-offs. But that doesn’t make a particle of difference. The joy lies in clearing out and beginning again. And besides, this keeps happening at a higher level. It seems that something has been gained.
September 9, 1940
torted themselves to a fare-thee-well out of despair or boredom (or ecstasy), which would have supported the whole weight of their actions, which would finally have constituted some very beautiful statues of sorrowful heroes. But their combined mass delivered them from the vegetal malediction. They have an ability to do away with their first expressions, permission to forget.
(The subjection of the parts to the whole. Yes, but when each part is a being, an individual: tree, animal [man], or word, or sentence or chapter – then it turns dramatic!)
The mass also protects them from the wind, the cold.
Alone, it would have been all or nothing, or perhaps one after the other in succession: perfect development up to a point – or atrophy of growth due to contrary elements.
In society outgrowth is normalized, in addition to which it creates something else: wood.
Some might have thought that the optimal solution would be to raise the young pines in nurseries, then – actually without sacrificing a single one – transplanting them from one place to another so that each could have a full chance to expand.
Meantime they’d have to have been kept together long enough to have acquired strong, straight trunks.
But at that point there arises a question of paramount importance.
Whereas up in the air, pine branches respect one another mutually, keep their distance, not intermingling viciously (now this is actually something rather strange, rather remarkable), do the same rules apply underground, for their roots? Would it be possible to disentangle a forest at its base without dangerously amputating each individual? Who knows? Who’d like to give me an answer? This will be necessary for my further research . . .
Words Looked Up After the Fact in the Littré:
Branches: arms (Celtic).
Mère branche. Mother branch: terminal branch.
One mustn’t grow attached to the branches (to what is not essential).
Branche gourmande. Glutton branch: the one that takes up too much space.
Branches de charpente. Main branches: the main shoots of a tree or bush, which support the smaller and fruiting branches.
Proverb: “Better to cling to the trunk of the tree than to its branches.”
Branchu. Branched: of many branches. A branched idea is one that offers two possibilities, two ramifications. “Do you believe that this idea, double-branched and equally awful in both directions . . .” (Saint-Simon)
Halle. Pavilion: 1. a large public place, generally covered; 2. a building open on all sides. Etymology: Halla, temple (German). There seems to have b
een confusion in Old French between halle and the Latin aula (courtyard).
Hallier. Thicket: copse, a very dense clump of shrubs (Buffon says: an area formerly cleared which are covered only with low scrub). Low Latin: hasla: branch.
Hangar. Shed: garage open on various sides and intended for storage of tools. From angaros: messenger (angel, Persian). Places where messengers (or angels!) would pause.
Fournilles. Brushwood: small branches and twigs left from cutting underbrush or saplings and useful for warming ovens (fours).
Gaulis: branches from underbrush left to grow. Branches that stop hunters running through heavy thickets.
Touffe. Tuft. Touffu. Tufted: checked.
Cimes. Treetops: from cuma, tender shoot, from χδω: to be swollen by what is engendered (sprout).
Peignoir: yes, robe put on to comb one’s hair (se peigner).
Taché. Stained: checked.
Entaché. Splashed: can be taken in a favorable sense, given that taché can be used as a mark of good qualities.
Pénombre. Shadow; astronomical term.
Bois. Wood: 1. that which lies under the bark of a tree; 2. a cluster of trees.
Forêt. Forest: from foresta, territory forbidden (foreign) to agriculture.
Futaie: forest of full-grown trees (see below). Futaie is opposed to taillis, brushwood. A term used in Old French: clères futaies.
Taillis: checked.
Pin. Pine, nothing special. La pigne, pine-nut, or pistache, pistachio. Pignon. Pine seed.
Conifère. Conifer: yes, checked: which bears fruit in the form of cones.
Lisière. Selvage: edge of field or forest; from liste, border.
Orée. Fringe: skirt of woods (becoming obsolete).