CONFITEOR TIBI DOMINE (en anglais)

ENGLISH :

Confiteor Tibi Domine

For Michel-Richard Delalande

I.

O God, there will be no peace

Until intimate prayers for the dead have been spoken!

Until the invocations that gushed from my soul, O God,

Have entered into the hearts of flowers

And penetrated down to the secret of their warm roots,

Until, O God, my tears have watered

The nests of their beloved names built beneath the syllables of the wind,

Where in the spaces that separate them

Grow trees

Of a fascinating beauty!

O prayers all

Of dew!

II.

O God, there will be no peace

Until my heart has prostrated itself

Upon the moss-covered flagstones of my own kind!

III.

Come, sweet shadows,

Undress fresh water,

Place the bouquets of my nostalgias

Upon its sleeping breast.

My love, become spring

So that in the tracks of the lives of the dead

There will spring up the white satin of snowdrops

And the golden silk of primroses.

Breeze, make the sweet dew flow

From the calyxes of the hawthorn onto the locks of the nasturtiums.

IV.

May your words, O God,

Marble the whole valley where my ancestors sleep!

Lord,

I know

That an invisible thread unites all lives,

That words, lighter than the wings of dragonflies,

Revolve around the silent columns of souls

Beneath the gentle rain that is the fruit of the years!

Note: Written while listening to the marvellous music of Delalane

Translated from the French of Athanase Vantchev de Thracy 26/27.06.12 by Norton Hodges