“You have done nothing but listen to songs,
you have done nothing but sing yourself;
you have not listened to men speaking,
and you yourself have not spoken.

What books have you read,
apart from those that preserve the voice of women
and illusory things?

You have sung, but have not spoken,
you have not probed to the heart of things
and cannot know them,”
so say the declaimers and pen-pushers
who laugh to see you glorify
the everyday miracle of sea and sky.

But you go on singing
and astonish yourself by thinking of the prow
that seeks an untraced route
over spreading water
and goes toward unexplored bays.
You astonish yourself by following the flight of the bird
that does not lose its way in the dunes of the sky

and finds in the wind
paths that lead to the native forest.

And the books you write
rustle of unreal things –
unreal by dint of too much being,
like dreams.

Translated by Jacqueline Michaud