J’avais un cheval
Dans un champ de ciel
Et je m’enfoncais
Dans le jour ardent.
Rien ne m’arretait
J’allais sans savoir,
C’etait un désir
Plutot qu’un navire,
C’etait u cheval
Comme on n’en voit pas,
Tete de coursier,
Robe de delire,
Un vent qui hennit
En se repandant.
Je montais toujours
Et faisais de signes:
“Suivez mon chemin,
Vous pouvez cenir,
Mes meilleurs amis,
La route est sereine,
Le ciel est ouvert.
Mais qui parle ainsi?
Je me perds de vue
Dans cette altitude,
Me distinguez-vous,
Je suis celui qui
Parlait tout a l’heure,
Suis-je encor celui
Oui parle a present,
Vous-memes, amis,
Etes-vous les memes?
L’un efface l’autre
Et change en montant?”
FULL SKY
I had a horse
In a pasture of sky
And I descended
Into the blaze of day.
Nothing stopped me
Going on without knowing
Whether it was a ship
Rather than a horse,
Or it was desire
More than a ship,
Since it was a horse
Such as we do not see,
With a head of a charger,
With its delirious dress,
With its neighing wind
Spreading somewhere beyond.
I continued to soar
And made some signs:
“Follow my path,
You can come,
My good friends,
The road is serene,
The sky is open,
But who is it that is speaking?
I lose sight of myself
At such an altitude.
Can you distinguish that it is me?
I am the one
Who was speaking earlier,
Am I still the one
Who addresses you now,
And, you, my friends,
Are you the same?
One erases the other,
And changes in amount.”
Wally Swist’s books include Huang Po and the Dimensions of Love (Southern Illinois University Press, 2012), Evanescence: Selected Poems, and Taking Residence (2021), with Shanti Arts. Recent poetry and translations have or will appear in Asymptote, Chicago Quarterly Review, Commonweal, The Montreal Review, Poetry London, and Rattle.
