Extracts from writer's works
Davant, Jean Louis
Poetry
WHOLE LOVE
Nourishing love resides in woman,
it is global, deep and all-embracing,
as round as the earth and sky.
She beckons us as seed to the cradle of her belly
where we are conceived over and over again!
She is lap and arms, she likes to encircle,
like an egg, she is complete fullness,
a sheltering orbit, an offered curve,
and if she gathers us to her, it is to graft us deeply
onto her substance in the refuge of her heart.
We drift
to the rounded mill of your love
like fish circling in the sea,
because with great respect in its mystery
you knead man
from the ape's seed.
From Itsasoak iraultzan, p.101, Maiatz, 1986.
THIRTEENTH
If I were God, I would invent
a new month for dreaming.
Outside time, transcending needs, neither summer nor winter,
it would have one hundred days.
Without taxes, TVs, cars, name,
it would have the feel of childhood holidays.
Free of obligations I could pick strawberries and
mushrooms in the woods with you.
Telling tales of truth or lies,
people would draw near to the fire at night,
sometimes laughing, other times, terrified.
My dream does not ask too much,
yet nowadays it cannot be realised,
for we cannot conceive the absence of hours and money.
The twelve suffice
to be taken like ants,
we would need another life to fulfil the dream.
From Denboraren Aroak, p. 32. BAK. 1982.
PIC D'ANIE
Free masterpiece worked by God,
perfect triangle containing the Basque Country,
slender pyramid in the Navarrese sky,
diligent needle in the midday sun,
High queen of crags and snows,
violin of the winds, silver stalagmite,
ivory minaret, cornet of ice,
diamond organ with crystal music,
Cave of thunder, Sinai of lightning flashes,
light is to cold, as brother is to sister,
I delight in you like a baby goat.
You fill neither heart nor stomach,
though the spirit shines on your summit,
and the dream of purity finds its measure in you.
From the summit of Gaztelütxaga
I admire you, slender in my childhood sky,
Oh inaccessible dream!
From Denboraren Aroak, p. 71. BAK. 1982.
MY DEAR
Child of your desires,
like a thirsty mirror eager to delight you,
for you have shaped me as I am,
I am yours, that's why I love you.
Imagined from afar, gate of the deserts,
hidden garden, mountain snow,
land won from abroad with sighs,
You are mine, that's why I love you.
I have no other blue, I cannot find one,
I see it nowhere, nor do I crave it.
There is no other so right for me,
You are unique, that's why I love you.
You are a red apple in a dewy meadow,
perfume of sea waves on the morning wind,
your hair fills my face,
you are full of life, that's why I love you.
As green as an oak leaf with you inside me,
I tell you the truth:
If you were to fall, I would die,
you are mortal, that's why I love you.
Because you are mine and I am yours,
you are mortal, full of life, yet unique,
or maybe the reverse.
I'm not bothered about who cares.
Why look for reasons?
You are as you are and that's why I love you.
From Denboraren Aroak.
EARTH MOTHER
Sacred bird, fount of health,
seeking out a carcase after the other vultures,
the last scavenger of all the carrion,
the lammergeier, the big bone eater in the mountains.
Two wings unfurled like the lammergeier,
powerful Earth Mother flies round the sun,
because it draws all the dead inside itself
and from it life is continually reborn.
While you live, Mother, there will be life,
You are forever young, because you are ageless
and you will bear children for ever.
From organic matter you filter salt,
from the salt you fill organs with blood sap.
As long as we don't kill you, people can grow.
Poured out of the sun
it came like the lammergeier.
Let us not dirty, nor exhaust the source of life.
From Nahi gabe, p.27. Iruñeko Aurezki Kutxa, 1985.
OAK
Oak, you oak, tree of trees,
king of our hearts
but lacking roots in cold kingdoms
your hard wood is little appreciated.
The tempest of the clays began in your roots,
you drowned our voices,
your strong arms sailed black seas.
Where will the result of your arms go down?
River of leaves, you are our living water,
we are your veins, other times the drowned,
we suffocate in the rocks of the pines.
Foreigners in your own land, full of anguish,
yet you stand tall, a stake in the mountains,
Oak, you oak, tree of trees.
From Nahi gabe, P. 52.
HAPPINESS
Can you hear the music of happiness
as light as air, clear and sweet?
It has no body, so moves in the spirit
like an angel dressed only in wings.
When it dies, somewhere you perceive
the final echo of the evening Angelus,
the brightness of dead stars, in the garden
the perfume of dead flowers, the warmth of hearts.
At times the plateau of happiness bursts
with the noise of vexations and thunder of evil.
Loaded with shouts, screams and piercing yells,
leaving the gorges split in lightning.
Is my heart aware
that this flat, monotonous music is happiness?
I caressed this oasis too late
from the peak of regrets on the final journey.
Now, weary of caressing the guitar,
will the King recognise the plateau of this monotonous sigh,
the past happiness in the lost garden?
Granada, oh Granada.
From Nahi gabe, p. 125.
FROM THE TOUGGOURT TOWER
Worried eyes in the white sun
on the dried-up river of distant sands
I am alone in the blazing depths below
as I gaze at you from the tower of dreams.
On the hard field in the depths of exile
can I imagine you, peak of white cloud,
encircled in snow, flower of the north in the dry sky
in the depths of my head?
Nothing appears on the horizon.
The trembling, still lake of iron
swallowed up as the ripple of peaks bubbles!
But the nightmare has gone away
beyond the sea, the fire and the blueness,
Lady Pyrene, Pyrenees!
From Itsasoak iraultzan, P. 11.
RAIMENT
My wife is not completely of this earth.
Elegantly attired in other garments
she has different plumage and wings
as she starts to dance in the swirling of her skirt.
Limiting life's sound to the utmost
when squeezing it into a statue,
Maillol's idea is unwieldy
and can't be fixed in the marble's stillness.
Twirling with fragile impetus
she flies into the air like the dove and the swallow
and flaps like a sail on the sea.
For fear of losing her
we put our faith in the weakness or shortness of her wings,
but in the beauty of her clothes she escapes from us.
From Itsasoak iraultzan, p. 100.
LIFE'S WAYWARDNESS
How wayward and pitiless life is!
It dumps us as soon as we start to love it
and takes away our works, aims, friends and pleasures
leaving everything mournful.
For free dreams are free of charge,
boys and girls mature early,
and together they give life to others;
all things drive us to this aim.
After raising children, autumn arrives.
Were we sensible, it would be the most productive time,
but our desire fades with the flower.
Suddenly life leaves us there
or, fed up, dumps us on the bed,
if it has not broken our spirit at a young age.
Truly going away
means abandoning our lovers.
My most cherished hope is to see them again.
From Harri txintxolak. P. 59. Elkarlanean, 2003.
FATHER VILLASANTE (1920-2000)
From that Sodom that did no wrong
the young man and his father escaped with their lives.
Soon it occurred to him to grow in the faith,
with humble heart, up in the mountains.
Now, freed from this earth,
he walks light of foot among the crags of Arantzazu,
and this is his peace, with the shepherds in Urbia,
with St. Francis and St. Clara, too.
Bearing Axular's message in mind
while Basque was spoken in a very divided way,
the prodigious worker dedicated himself to its service.
The tree of Gernika has borne fruit.
Father Villasante, you led us
in uniting the seven in the language.
From Harri txintxolak, p. 103.
