There is a thought...

Un poème sans titre de Jean-Joseph Rabearivelo, paru dans Poèmes, recueil de 1960

There is a thought in the night tossed and tumbled,
A scrap of wreckage still sunk in the tide;
There is a thought too feeble to have stumbled
Up to the lips, but lingers deep inside.

A scrap of wreckage not lodged on the beaches,
In open water turning listlessly;
See there before it - the immense land reaches;
See there behind - the vast and shining sea.

O thought of mine - born at the moon's rising
That looming into sight drinks up the stars;
O thought of mine, knotted and agonizing,
A scrap of wreckage as it restless fares.

The moon's birth is a time of ah ! what sweetness,
For then from weariness into our sight
Springs what we think the world in its completeness,
Iarivo's suburb, clean and shining white.

A time of happiness, of consolation,
A time when from my heart there rises high
My song of songs, to be the consummation
Of my spilt words and aIl my bitter cry.

And yet - and yet - though it dare come no further,
Deep down I hear a dread which has begun;
And fear and trembling work away together,
Trembling and fear are now become as one,

And pounce on time behind - time is defeated,
The present and the past are packing sent;
The days to come are in their places
seated, The future asks, 'Can l stay innocent ?'

What ? A thought in the night tossed and tumbled,
A scrap of wreckage struggling in the tide.
What ? A thought collapsed, that has not stumbled
Out into words but lies still slumped inside

But there it murmurs - and the soul is shaken:
'We are such scraps - we find a goal or drown.'
The moon has risen. Here my mind is taken
By doubts, confused, divided, overthrown.

This is the dread, the ever-present worry:
"What if the past always succeed the past ?
What shall maintain its calm against Time's hurry ?
What shall be saved ? What is there that can last ?

And yet this thought still brings me ah ! what sweetness,
That still to light the dark horizon yields
What we think true, the world in its completeness,
Iarivo's suburb and Imanga's fields.

Traduction: John Reed, Clive Wake et Alan Rogers