MEMOIRS OF A MADMAN: Poetry, by Gustave Flaubert

MEMOIRS OF A MADMAN

“If I threw the grass
and watched the stems bend to the breeze,
and the waves beat the sand, here, I thought of her,
I relived the heart every step,
every gesture, every word.
So it would be this, love?
A “mental thing”
that feeds the fire of imagination
and asks for help to balms memory
not to be corrupted to ashes?
And, if so, want to burn in the fire,
claim to warm up to the fire,
and illuminating, their gray days,
does not involve the most fatal risk? “

(Gustave Flaubert)