Waves – Tree

Poem by Guillaume Apollinaire Collection CalligrammesPeriod 20th century

To Frédéric Boutet.

You sing with the others while the phonographs gallop
Where are the blind where have they gone
The only leaf that I picked has turned into several mirages
Do not abandon me among this crowd of women at the market
Ispahan has become a sky of tiles enameled in blue
And I climb back with you along a road near Lyon

I have not forgotten the sound of the little bell of a coconut vendor
from long ago
I already hear the sour sound of that voice to come
Of the comrade who strolls with you in Europe
While remaining in America

A child
A skinned calf hanging from the stall
A child
And this sandy suburb around a poor town deep in the east
A customs officer stood there like an angel
At the gate of a wretched paradise
And that epileptic traveler foamed in the first-class waiting room

Nightjar Badger
And the Mole-Ariadne
We had rented two coupés on the Trans-Siberian
By turns we slept the traveler in jewelry and I
But the one who kept watch did not hide a loaded revolver

You strolled in Leipzig with a slender woman disguised as a man
Intelligence for that is what an intelligent woman is
And one should not forget the legends
Dame-Abonde in a streetcar at night at the end of a deserted neighborhood
I saw a hunt while I was going up
And the elevator stopped at every floor

Between the stones
Between the multicolored clothes in the shop window
Between the glowing coals of the chestnut vendor
Between two Norwegian ships moored at Rouen
There is your image

It grows between the birches of Finland

That beautiful Negro made of steel

The greatest sadness
Is when you received a postcard from La Coruña

The wind comes from the west
The metal of the carob trees
Everything is sadder than before
All the earthly gods grow old
The universe complains through your voice
And new beings arise
Three by three

Guillaume Apollinaire

Translation generated by Poésies 123 with assistance from the deepseek-chat artificial-intelligence model.

Text published on Poésies 123: https://www.poesies123.com/en/poem-waves-tree-guillaume-apollinaire/