Samples of René Char

I saw you, the first and the only one, divine female in the greatly disturbed spheres. I tore your dress of infinity, brought you back naked onto my soil. The mobile humus of the earth was everywhere. We are flying, say your servants, in cruel space, to the song of my red trumpet.

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The poet gives life, then hastens to the outcome. In the evening, in spite of several apprentice dimples on his cheek, he is a courteous passerby cutting short the farewells to be there when the bread comes out of the oven.

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No more second self, or changing face, no more

A season for flame and a season for shadow!

With the slow snow descend the lepers.

Suddenly love, terror's equal,

With hand never seen checks the fire, restores

The sun, reconstructs the Beloved.

Nothing gave notice of a life so strong.

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...your face, as it is, may it always be, so free that at its touch air's infinite ring crumpled, half-opening as I met it, clothing me with the fine streets of your imagination. I remained there, entirely unknown to myself, in your sun mill...

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The First Moments

We were watching the water as it flowed, increasing before us. It effaced the mountain suddenly, expelling itself from her maternal side. Not a torrent submitting to its fate but an ineffable beast whose word and substance we became. It held us amorous on the all-powerful arch of its imagination. What intervention could have constrained us? Daily tameness had fled, blood cast aside was rendered to its heat. Adopted by the open, abraded to invisibility, we were a victory which would never end.