X LA LICORNE DANS LA CITE

Licorne - inaccessible - pèlerinage
Vers les glaces et les échos. Par quel seuil
Gagner le coeur, non le reflet? De quel page
Accepter bride qui ne brise l'orgueil?

Cité vide. Les regards qui glissent. Foule
Et seule plus qu'au coeur de la forêt. Son
Attente est de la main qui soit conçue d'où
Le temps ne coulerait plus, de l'échanson

(Ruant contre toute impure qui du vase
Que n'habiterait l'histoire fit le chaudron
Où germeront heures, pus, être, et écrase
La danse en ses flancs jaillissante - son don)

Miraculeux qui seul connaît le breuvage.
Il va par la cité. Ses façons de fou
Allument les rires et font du sauvage
Les femmes s'écarter. Il va toujours. Sous

Ses pieds le pavé hostile et les passages
De fers rougis. Portes closes. La nuit vient.
Il est seul, pauvre du savoir des sages -
Et la licorne s'accouple avec les chiens.

Michel Galiana (c) 1991

X THE UNICORN IN THE CITY

To tame the unicorn -an endless pilgrimage
Through mirrors and echoes. Which threshold must be passed
To reach her inmost core and not her mere image?
Which groom may bridle her so as to spare her pride?

Vacuous town. Evasive glances. A teeming mass
Wherein she is alone, more still than midst the wood.
She's waiting for a hand that would have been devised
To stop the swift passage of time, that of the steward,

(And at the impure hand she kicks  which of vessels
That no history filled longed to make a cauldron
Where time and putrescence and being sprout and stiffened
The dance that on her flanks quivered - her vocation)

The wizard who alone knows of the beverage.
He wanders through the town. His frantic demeanour
Gives rise to laughter, makes away from the savage
Every woman flee. He goes on however.

Under his feet, hostile pavement and ruts furrowed
By glowing hooves. Gates that shut as the night comes down.
He is alone, rich with the sages' poor knowledge.-
Look at the unicorn: she is mating with hounds!