Yves Bonnefoy: Phoenix

The bird will be carried in front of our heads,
A bloody shoulder will rise up for him,
Joyous he will close his wings on the top
Of that tree, your body, which you will offer him.

But will you be for him anything but a resting-place?
Other trees make for you another night.
He will sing a long time as he moves away through their branches,
The dark will come to raise the limits of his cry.


Tr. rather heavily by Wallace Fowlie, who for unknown reasons did not include the poem's title. From Du mouvement et l'immobilité de Douve (1953). Bonnefoy died, aged 93, on 1 July this year.