Of saints and roses
Flowers, flowers everywhere, flowers of light,
flowers in the soft air, flowers in my eyes,
pure roses carrying the grace of wings
towards a heaven always open to lips in prayer !
Sublime merci of Christ Omnipotent,
smiling, changing the book of atoms
into starry stems, cathedrals, domes,
and the scars of time into dizzing odes.
Lord, I pray you, fill my bleeding tongue
with your supreme brightness, with a perfect knowledge
of your boundless goodness, of your love which is
the origin of all things. May my poetry unite
in full consciousness with your tender charity,
with the agonies of the saints, with the cries of those who mourn !
Translated from French by Norton Hodges
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