FRENCH CONTEMPORARY POETRY: Henri Michaux, from “La Nuit Remue”, Council on the pines

“A monotonous noise does not necessarily calm. An auger not calm anyone, except perhaps the foreman. Still, it is among the monotonous noise that you have more chance of finding the calm. What is nice in the sound of the wind blowing on a forest pines, is that this noise has no edges, is round. But it has nothing to dismal. (Or maybe calm because it leads us to imagine a being substantial and good-natured, unable to get out completely off the deep end?). But do not look too the top of the pine trees blowing in the strong wind. Because if you got there to imagine sitting on top, in a sway that, we could, and with much more ease that if we were on a swing or in an elevator, because of the weird and wonderful movement up there, feel dragged, and while striving not to think, certainly far from wanting to meditate on quell’oscillamento, we would be perpetually busy, we feel increasingly shaky on the summit of a pine tree, we could no longer get off the ground. “

(Henri Michaux)