NOLI ME TANGERE (poem) - Yves Bonnefoy - France

NOLI ME TANGERE

Hésite le flocon dans le ciel bleu
A nouveau, le dernier flocon de la grande neige.

Et c’est comme entrerait au jardin celle qui
Avait bien du rêver ce qui pourrait être,
Ce regard, ce dieu simple, sans souvenir
Du tombeau, sans pensée que le bonheur,
Sans avenir
Que sa dissipation dans le bleu du monde.

‘Non, ne me touche pas’, lui dirait-il,
Mais même dire non serait de lumière.

NOLI ME TANGERE

The flake hesitates in the blue sky
Once again, the last flake of the big snow.

And it’s as though she who must surely have imagined
What could be would enter the garden,
That look, that simple god, without remembering
The tomb, without any thought but happiness,
Without any future
Except its dispersal in the blue of the world.

‘No, don’t touch me,’ he would say to her,
But even to say no would shed light.