Translations by Jonathan Holmes
of two of the poems of Paul Eluard

 

To Life

We have hands to offer to others;
Take mine; I shall bring you away.

I have lived several lifetimes,
My face has shifted
With every threshold I have crossed, and with every hand clasped.
The turning year is reborn,
Keeping for itself and for me its perishable snow.
The dead dance with the betrothed,
The future grips us, fists clenched,
And sets us free.

My age always gave me
New reasons for living through others
For having the blood of another man’s heart in mine,
For looking into the eyes of the future.

Presence is in each searching hand.
From delight to desolation;
From dismay to clarity,
I heal myself through the touch of others.
Through all weather on earth and in the clouds,
Through the passing seasons I am renewed,
And strong for having loved.
I am young, still, now:
My blood overflows my ruins.

And we have our aching hands to entwine.
Nothing can ever seduce better
Than the touching of our fingers,
The heat of our palms, sightless eyes,
Through which all other sense begins.

 

The Absence

I sing to you across cities,
I sing to you across plains,
My mouth whispers close to your ear.
Both cheeks of the city wall greet
My voice, which is caressing you.
I whisper to you of forever.

My cities,
Cities of memory,
Cities draped with our desires,
Cities brutal and enveloping,
Cities strong and hidden,
Denied their creators,
Their guests, their hosts,
Their thinkers, their ghosts.

I laugh and dream among the streets of fire,
Between the patterns of sunlight,
And over my body your body spreads
The sheet of its bright mirror.