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Poetry

“The willow herb at the wood’s edge clothes itself”

Robert Marteau

Malcolm Greenlee Farley (translator)

The willow herb at the wood’s edge clothes itself
with feathers and punctuates the bark of the trees.
A crackling of birds comes from the dogwoods
that break in glaucous waves down the forest path—
it sounds like a game of castanets among the firs,
with blackberry bushes and ferns at the ebb.  
A crow alights at the summit of the full-grown forest 
and croaks, entangled in the green which he churns 
with his beating wings. Pale on the primed hemp-weed, 
a painted symbol between perches, the sun no longer 
beams with the same arrogance it still had yesterday.  
The discrete bee and the silent buzzard inhabit the present
without arousing suspicion. Leaves breathe in
shadows, flickering sometimes at the end of a twig.

(Forêt de Mouchy: Saturday, August 25, 1990)
Wavy lines denoting a space break.
Les épilobes au bord du bois se revêtent
De plumes.  Ponctuation contre l’écorce.
Un crépitement d’oiseau vient des cornouillers
Glauques en vagues sure le chemin forestier.
Ronce et fougère au jusant, jeu de castagnettes 
Dans les sapins.  Un corbeau se pose au sommet
De la futaie et croasse, emmêlé au vert
Qu’il baratte de ses ailes battantes.  Pâle
Sur le chanvre marouflé, symbole peint entre
Les perches, le soleil n’a plus cette arrogance
Qu’il avait encore hier.  L’abeille discrète,
La buse silencieuse habite le jour 
San éveiller de soupçon.  Les feuilles respirent
L’ombre, palpitent parfois au bout de la touffe.

(Foret de Mouchy, samedi 25 aout 1990)


Malcolm Greenlee Farley

A transplant to Long Island, Malcolm Greenlee Farley is a poet, cultural journalist, and translator. His poems have appeared in many journals including Agni, The Paris Review, The New Republic, and Raritan. He has just completed a book of his own poetry entitled Wissahickon Formation. His reviews and essays have appeared in The New York Times Book Review, The American Poetry Review, The American Psychoanalyst, and The Boston Review. In addition, he has won residencies at MacDowell, the Writers’ Institute at the City University of New York, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and the Vermont Studio Center.

Poetry

  • “The willow herb at the wood’s edge clothes itself”

  • “I recall that things were pretty much”

    • Robert Marteau

    French poet, novelist, translator, and essayist, Robert Marteau was born in 1925 and died in 2011. While his work celebrates France, the French landscape and French history and culture, he also lived in Canada for more than a decade. His work garnered many awards, including the Charles Vildrac Prize, two prestigious prizes for poetry from the Académie Française, the Poitou-Charentes Book Prize for his novel In The Grass, and the Mallarmé Prize for his book of poetry, Ordinary Time. In 1979, Princeton University Press published, Salamander, a selection of his poetry in English translation.

    Poetry

  • “The willow herb at the wood’s edge clothes itself”

  • “I recall that things were pretty much”

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