Jules Supervielle (born 16 January, 1884; died 17 May, 1960), pictured above, circa 1941, in a photograph, taken in Supervielle’s native Uruguay, by Gisèle Freund
Haute Mer
a Maurice Guillaume
Parmi les oiseaux et les lunes
Qui hantent le dessous des mers
Et qu’on devine à la surface
Aux folles phrases de l’écume,
Parmi l’aveugle témoignage
Et les sillages sous -marins
Des mille poissons sans visage
Qui cachent en eux leurs chemins,
Le noyé cherche la chanson
Où s’était formé son jeune âge,
Ecoute en vain les coquillages
Et les fait choir au sombre fond.
Deep Sea
Among the birds and moons that haunt
the sea depths
presences
evinced at the surface by
strange gestures of foam
blindly witnessed among their
underwater wakes by a thousand
faceless fishes, their
ongoing roads concealed in water,
the drowned man seeks for that song
his youth took form in,
listens in vain to shells
and lets them
drop to the
dark sea-floor
(translated by Denise Levertov)
