XIII MONTE-CRISTO

Le prisonnier jamais n'a quitté la cache
Où chaque nuit le complice le rejoint.
Secret, leur jeu de vertiges et de taches
Dont tu bâtis ta fable quand l'éveil point.

Le prisonnier jamais n'a quitté son antre
Où bat la mer insaisissable. Le prisonnier
La nuit veut jetant sa vie au van
Trouver cet or dont la sagesse est le prix.

Sous ton rocher, pêcheur qui de lune coule,
Ramèneras-tu la couronne et la clef?
Le vieil océan plus que le vin te saoule
Où tu plonges seul et nu, poisson ailé.

(Un savant prétendit que nul ne naît, mais
Que la part profonde de l'être toujours
Baigne dans ce chaos gluant et jamais
Déserté - ventre primitif de l'amour)

Dans l'éclat opaque de la nuit, la rose
Qui brûle est soeur du charbon et des joyaux.
Le mineur connaît le filon et la cause.
Il arbordera les portiques royaux.

Il reverra le sentier de l'églantine,
Le sourire de la jeune fille au bois,
La blancheur de sa poitrine enfantine,
Retrouvera -jamais oubliée- sa voix.

Il comprendra qu'il avait déserté l'heure
Quand se leva sur lui l'appel d'un regard,
Et n'était alors qu'un passant, sans demeure,
Qui croise l'éternité -par pur hasard.

Michel Galiana (c) 1991

XIII MONTE-CRISTO

Never did the captive give up the hiding place
Nor omit to meet with his accomplice nightly.
They played the secret game of flecked dizziness
With which, when awakening, you shored up your story.

Never did the captive give up his rocky den
Restlessly lashed by elusive sea. He will
Make the most of the night, winnowing his life, then
He shall find the treasure, the reward for wise drill.

Will from under your rock, O moonlight fisherman,
By your endeavours be salvaged  the key, the crown?
Wine intoxicates you less than the old ocean
Where you dive, a winged fish alike, naked, alone.

(A scholar asserts that no one was ever born,
But that the deeper part of us forever swims
In the sticky chaos where we are doomed to spawn,
Which is the womb where love thrives from the beginning.)

In the sombre brightness of night the glowing rose
Is akin both to coal and to all sparkling jewels.
For the miner who knows the vein has guessed the cause.
He shall be able to enter the royal halls.

And tread anew the path bordered with wild roses,
See the smile of the girl once spied in the forest,
With the wan complexion of her childish poses
And hear again her voice - he never did forget.

And he will understand that he had fled the hour
When rose on him the call of an imperious glance,
He was a wanderer back then, strayed from his bower,
Who had crossed on his way eternity, perchance.