Lascaux, cave painting

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THE ROCK-WALL AND THE MEADOW
(complete text)
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Lascaux
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I. Dead Bird-man and Dying Bison
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Thin body that had imperious enthusiasm,
Now perpendicular to the wounded Brute.
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O killed without any pity!
Killed by what was all and, reconciled, is dying;
He, the abyss sancer, spirit, yet to be born,
Bird and perverse fruit of magics, cruelly saved.
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II. The Black Stag
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The waters spoke on into the sky's ear.
Stag, you and you and you have crossed millennia, the space
From rock darkness to the air's caresses.
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The hunter driving you, the genius seeking you --
How, from my broad shore, I love their passions!
And if their eyes were mine, at the instant when I hope?
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III. The Beast Not To Be Named
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The beast not to be named closes the march of the dainty
- - herd, like a comic Cyclops.
Eight jibes make up her finery, share out her folly.
The beast belches a prayer into the country air.
Her stuffed and sagging flanks are hurting, will
- - soon rid themselves of their bigness.
From her hooves to her vain tusks she is muffled in stench.
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This is how, in the Lascaux frieze, to me appears,
- - mother in fantastical disguise,
Wisdom with her eyes full of tears.
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René Char (France, 1907-1988)
Poems of René Char
translated and annnoted,
Mary Ann Claws and Jonathan Griffin
Princeton, 1976, Princeton University Press
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For more information:

On René Char: http://www.poemhunter.com/ren-char/biography/
On the translator, Mary Ann Caws: http://www.maryanncaws.com/index.php
On Lascaux Cave paintings: http://www.culture.gouv.fr/culture/arcnat/lascaux/en/


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