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Callaloo 30.1 (2007) 345-346

Untitled / Return
Rodney Saint-Eloi
translated by Marie-Ovide Gina Dorcely

Untitled

je reviens à la mer comme à la terre comme l'amitié des lilas comme qu'importe le hasard calfeutrant la digue des siècles, j'apprivoise en tes bras l'éternité de tous les bleus, et ciel et mer en moi debout semés

enfant perdu dans la foulée des hommes

chèvre rebelle au troupeau, rebelle à moi-même, dans ce jardin d'oraison de menthe de cannelle de parfum de romarin

je revendique la sorcière qui m'enfanta une nuit mauve

je revendique la libation qui fit de moi l'orage des ciels d'octobre

s'il y a un homme c'est ma main libre qui rencontre le monde

s'il y a une route c'est mon corps aveugle qui cherche sa mémoire [End Page 346]

Return

I return to sea and to soil, wreathed in the embrace of lilacs, to fellowship,
kin to the listing of chance against the brace of the ages; in your arms, I am calmed by an unending spray of blue–sky, sun stand
on their hind legs, sower and reaper within me.

Child, lost in the tramp of the world.

Rebel goat of the herd, rebel unto myself, in this garden of contemplation, swathed in mint, cinnamon, the savor of rosemary.

I summon the sorcerer who made me a child one mauve night.

I am the drink that foxed me, turned me to tumult—October sky raging.

Where man encounters man, it is my own free hand
in salute to the world.

Where path meets road to make way, my body, blind,
seeks a self, remembrance

Rodney Saint-Eloi, a native of Haiti, lives in Montreal, Canada. In 1991, he founded Editions Memoire in Port-au-Prince, which was followed by Memoire d'encrier in Montreal in 2003. He is also a poet and critic of art and literature.

Marie-Ovide Gina Dorcely is a poet, translator, and nonfiction prose writer. She has received awards for her writing from the Cave Canem Foundation and the Breadloaf Writers Conferences. Her work has appeared in Ploughshares, Caribbean Writer, and The Portable Lower East Side. She was born in Haiti.

Original French reprinted here with permission of the author.
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