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Poetry

But Your Eyes

By Esther Nirina
Translated from French by Alison Anderson
But your eyes heard
The brilliance of the laughter
Residing in the pale bone
Of our faces
Your pupils will read
The thread woven by time’s
Imprint
Upon the brow of the present
With the red note of the river
For a manuscript 
To adjust
Our song still to come
The odor of travel lingers about you
Your only sin is in wanting
To live life
Some day
Your steps 
Will lead you to
The stopping place
Of mornings.
In her belly
For centuries now
Every fiber
Will carry
A dream
Woman remains
In her barren pregnancy
With the fruit
Which for today
Spills over on the lips
Of cracked walls
But
My waiting
Is bluer
Between dusk
And
Dawn.
Simple vowel
Lost vowel
Coming and going
In the cage of the masked ball
It spreads 
The odor and the image
Of the other shore
When the cord flushed with blood
Inhales a breath set free
I see again the subterranean sun 
Neighbor to my October cacti
Lovely at once for too much weeping
Is it for you that the poet
Carries transparent nights
So that speech
Shall be twisted no more?
Freedom
Where are you?
I can see only the front
Of inhabited beings
Their voice moves the line
Far away
At each limit
A new gulf emerges
And will the dream
Expand
At least
In a word?
The clarity of a god
Mates with the innocence
Of a child
Words are 
Reinvented
In his fingers.
My heart no longer beats
To the rhythm of Me of You
An awareness of the sea
Guides my hands
To enlarge
My table for the sacred feast
Thus do
The waves shape the sand
Smooth is the beach
Like the arch of my entrance
Refusing your doors.
English
But your eyes heard
The brilliance of the laughter
Residing in the pale bone
Of our faces
Your pupils will read
The thread woven by time’s
Imprint
Upon the brow of the present
With the red note of the river
For a manuscript 
To adjust
Our song still to come
The odor of travel lingers about you
Your only sin is in wanting
To live life
Some day
Your steps 
Will lead you to
The stopping place
Of mornings.
In her belly
For centuries now
Every fiber
Will carry
A dream
Woman remains
In her barren pregnancy
With the fruit
Which for today
Spills over on the lips
Of cracked walls
But
My waiting
Is bluer
Between dusk
And
Dawn.
Simple vowel
Lost vowel
Coming and going
In the cage of the masked ball
It spreads 
The odor and the image
Of the other shore
When the cord flushed with blood
Inhales a breath set free
I see again the subterranean sun 
Neighbor to my October cacti
Lovely at once for too much weeping
Is it for you that the poet
Carries transparent nights
So that speech
Shall be twisted no more?
Freedom
Where are you?
I can see only the front
Of inhabited beings
Their voice moves the line
Far away
At each limit
A new gulf emerges
And will the dream
Expand
At least
In a word?
The clarity of a god
Mates with the innocence
Of a child
Words are 
Reinvented
In his fingers.
My heart no longer beats
To the rhythm of Me of You
An awareness of the sea
Guides my hands
To enlarge
My table for the sacred feast
Thus do
The waves shape the sand
Smooth is the beach
Like the arch of my entrance
Refusing your doors.

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