Quiet, dignified men of honour and profession of faith who belong in other ages less bloodied than ours...

The crime is snowed over, Translation of Pierre Emmanuel's "Il neige sur le crime."

(Note : Pierre Emmanuel (pseudonym for Mathieu), b. May 3, 1916, d. September 22, 1984 at Gan in the Basses Pyrénées, was one of the most prolific of XXth Century poets. His corpus also included books of critiques and a novel. Rejected by a distraught mother at three weeks, his parents emigrated to the U.S., leaving him to be brought up by a paternal uncle, according to Anne-Sophie Constant who selected and prefaced his "Anthologie Poétique", out this year: 2014. Upon graduating from the University of Lyon where he studied literature, he taught for some years before heading the English language services at the RTL radio while writing for "Témoignage Chrétien", "Réforme" and "Esprit". President of the French Pen Club (1973-76), he later headed the French National Audio-Visual Institute and the Cultural Affairs Commission of the VIth Plan. Elected to the French Academy of Letters in 1968, he renounced the honour in 1975 in protest at the election of Félicien Marceau. For a time, he also headed the International Association for Cultural Freedom. As a poet, he had already made his mark with his first collections : Elégies (1940) and Tombeau d’Orphée (1941), followed by a steady stream of some forty collections thereafter. Received – among many others – the Grand Prize for Poetry of the French Academy in 1984.

A-S. Constant quotes from two interviews on his inveterate sense of independence : « Je ne me sens pas la vocation d’un maître, et je ne veux aucun disciple. » and « Je suis un poète et un chrétien. »
Translated: "I don't feel the call to assume the role of the leader or preacher, and I (therefore) refuse to accept any follower or disciple." - "I am (only) a poet and a Christian.")
T. Wignesan


Are we buried under snow holding our silence
in what immense Cimmerian (collision) of terror ?
The mouth kept open in the shriek of interminable shade
lips held fast in the frozen depths
we disturb the slumber of the Dead with our yelling
mute – calling Whom, alas ? We howl by the sepulchre
the absence of a name stretching towards a solitary Name :
but the Voice suppressed down our throat strangles
the liberating Name which could call back on its feet.
The head in the tomb and touching our lips
the lips of these the dead that we shall become tomorrow,
we continue to live in spite of it all but let’s conceal our
............................................................................breath
for fear of dispelling the silence gathering around us
for God could oblige us to confront ourselves
and more than the Fear of Him, we are (indeed) afraid.

Fire over the snow
Fire at those still alive
What matters is that blood saturates this land/Earth
Words enough snow down to cover up the blood

It snows over the Shriek of long sighs of absence
the glossy smiles over twisted lips
It snows over wounds of pale hands, capable
of simulated caresses like those of naked tortoises
It snows weighted flakes, the glaring white of the blind
which fill the great orbs the eyes of the dead make
It snows a gentle down of murder on the plains
just as troublesome as the slumber of assassins
The Shriek sans end reaches up to lunar heights
where trees are shorn of their barks : listen
the strident whiteness of vast deserts populated by men
where abandoned stones howl in the face of death.
The Night, the immense snow Pièta of an ebony Christ
looks at the shadow cast by rifles pointing towards her
......................................................................dead son
the shadow of murderers projecting over the snow
-- she feels the breath of that Shadow on her feet
the horror freezes her over up to the stars ah crying
« Fire » so that at last the salve explodes and downs
these shadows of rifles these over-sized canons
But the tears of this great Death
shall alas get the better of this snow.

(from the collection : La liberté guide nos pas, 1945)

© T. Wignesan – Paris, September 28, 2014 (Translation and Intro.)