Tout sur les larmes

 

to Georgia Ronan Crampton for dreams, allegories and visions

I. The Futility of Tears

My mother told me that
she sometimes has
flashbacks in the shower,
but now she simply shouts
"Get thee behind me!"

Her mother taught her
not to cry at funerals:
at her husband's, she was
drunk and obnoxiousuntil my mother socked her.

I'm still crying as I
watch Bambi with my
grandson. He's put
his arm around my shoulder
and he's patting me,

His little hand taps
a smile through
my tears, our eyes
connect in a strange dance
of familial understanding.

II. Comment ça marche

J'ai un vide
qui m'habite
qui me nourrit
et me mange
dedans

le vide infernale
où je dors
pendant que
je meure
chaque jour

tristesse san fin
un trou pour
tout le temps
où la pluie
tombe d'en haut

moi en bas
sur le dos
coeur leger
coeur vidé
mon sacré coeur

III. Le Choix

If I try a bit harder
to hold myself
beneath the surface,
I will drown and be
no more, no fish,
no rock, no twig,
not even a lark of
a thought, a naught.

If I rise like a bubble
and blink in the sun
with a glint of a fish
scale jumping up for
bugs, then mere air
will carry me along
like the odd, thin-gray
bird one spots in
winter pictures.

An eye underwater
cannot discern a
lakedrop from a tear:
ils ne tomberont pas
dans l'antigravité des
eaux, ils se fixeront
derrière ces bulbes
en les poussant ouverts
comme les yeux morts.

The eye caught by
sun wakes up: hot
it weeps out effortlessly
its acidy depths, then
dries of its own saltiness:
les larmes, un son,
l'appel d'une mouette,
la lêvure de tristesse,
l'ouverture d'un tombeau
je ne voudrais pas
être traître du soi:i will plumb a grave
with empty hands,
i will dig at silky ash
then terra firma,
mud, salt, river, rock
then molten lava
until they come.


Painting: John Everett Millais, Ophelia