POETRY

He was born in Paris, inside an October day, becoming poet, novelist and member of the French Comunist Party. Dadaism and Surrealism inside the life of Louis Aragon. In 1939 he married Russian-born author Elsa Triolet, and she became his muse. During the second word war, he wrote for the underground press Les Éditions de Minuit, and was a member …

To learn about countries and nations, it is necessary to know their cultural latitudes. A perfectly proportioned man (created by Leonardo da Vinci), correlating the symmetry of human anatomy to the symmetry of the universe. What you see, hear, eat and feel, it’s all inside Meeting Benches way: the Vitruvian approach to life. WHEN WILL YOU COME? I send letters …

LOVE’S SONG And as I detain my soul, because I do not just reach your own? How I will lift it to other spheres, where you no longer is? Oh, I would hide it in something, that go missing in the dark solitude, unknown and silent in a corner, that does not vibrate more when your rivibrano the depths! But …

IM SPIEGEL Im Spiegel mein zerschnittener Körper In der Mitte geteilt von der Operation die mein Leben gerettet hat. Wozu Frage ich mich beim Blick in den Spiegel Für ein Kind eine Frau ein Spätwerk Leben lernen mit der halben Maschine Atmen essen Verboten die frage Wozu Die zu leicht von den Lippen geht Der Tod Ist das Einfache sterben …

KEEP CLOSE TO YOU WHAT IT IS GOOD > Keep close to you what is good, although a handful of earth. Hold onto what you believe in, even if it is a solitary tree. Hold onto what you have to do, even if it’s far away from here. Keep close life, although it is easier to let go. Hold on …

VA CHANSON > Va, chanson, à titre-d’aile, au-devant d’elle, et dis-lui bien que dans mon coeur fidèle un rayon joyeux a lui, dissipant lumière sainte, ces ténèbres de l’amour: méfiance, doute, crainte, et que voici le grand jour! Longtemps craintive et muette, entendez-vous? La gaîté, comme une vive alouette, dans le ciel clair a chanté. Va donc, chanson ingénue, et …

MEMORY OF MARIE A. > One day in September, the month blue, quiet under a young plum tree, I held my love pale and quiet in my arms like a sweet dream. And over us in the beautiful summer sky there was a cloud that I mirai long: white in the high was lost, and when she looked again, she …

LOW BRANCHES While that means last but not knowing, take eternity by low branches that protect the table where light and shadow play, on my white page of this morning. Around these two trees, first the blade, then the house, then the time, then tomorrow, to open oblivion, which already dissolves these fruits yesterday dropped by the table. There is …

THE HILL > I have come this far on my own legs, missing the bus, missing taxis, climbing always. One foot in front of the other, that is the way I do it. It does not bother me, the way the hill goes on. Grass beside the road, a tree rattling its black leaves. So what? The longer I walk, …

“The Book of Ephraim” is the first of three books that make up “The Changing Light at Sandover,” the masterpiece of one of the most important American poets of the late twentieth century, James Merrill (1926/1995). FROM THE BOOK OF EPHRAIM Admittedly I err by undertaking this is its present form. The baldest prose reportage was called for, that would …