IX L'ADOLESCENTE

Elle chantait au seuil du jardin oublieux.
Sur sa gorge flottaient les parfums de l'enfance,
Mais l'horreur d'être claire illuminait ses yeux.
Les lames de la nuit emportaient ses défenses.

Passante du matin, elle écoutait des voix.
L'ombre appesantissait sa danse de lutine.
Son rire s'ocellait comme font les sous-bois.
La femme grandissait sous sa forme argentine.

Derrière elle, le bois étoilait ses appeaux,
L'anis, les lys des eaux que les ondes annellent,
Mais sur les troncs posés recueillaient le repos
Les velours somptueux des chats, vertes prunelles.

Elle chantait. Tout mai tintait dans sa chanson.
Mois je guettais, chasseur dédaigneux du suaire,
La jeune fille en chants qui payait sa rançon
Pour de l'enfance avoir quitté le sanctuaire.

Michel Galiana (c) 1991

IX THE TEENAGER

On the threshold of the garden of oblivion
She sang and there floated in her voice a fragrance
Of childhood. Her eyes were blended by the bright sun.
And the ebb of the night swept away her defence.

A morning passer-by, she listened to voices.
Shadow slowed down her pace as she danced like a sprite.
Her laugh, as in some undergrowth, broke in patches.
With the woman growing in her she had a fight.

On a background of woods glittering lures were dotted:
Anise, lilies on lakes that are rippled by gnats,
But here upon a heap of trunks quietly rested
The sumptuous velvet of lazy green-eyed cats.

She sang and in her song I heard all April's glee.
I was watching like some hunter, scorning to hide.
The young girl was paying in songs the tollgate fee
That must be settled on leaving the realm of Child.