Author Bio
PrintThe Shark and the Seagull
by René CharTranslated by Mary Ann Caws
Finally I catch sight of the sea in its triple harmony, the sea whose crescent slices into the dynasty of absurd griefs, the great preserver of wild birds, the sea as credulous as a bindweed.
When I say: I have lifted the law, I have gone past morality, I have buckled my heart, it isn’t to claim I am right before this scale of emptiness whose sound extends its palm beyond my conviction . But nothing of what has seen me live and act until now is around to bear witness. My shoulder may slumber, my youth may rush in. From that alone wealth immediate and workable should be drawn.
So there’s one pure day in the year, one day that furrows its marvelous balcony in the foam of the sea, one day rising as high as the eyes to crown noontime. Yesterday nobility was wasteland, the branch was far from its buds. The shark and the seagull did not converse.
Oh rainbow of this grinding shore, bring the ship close to its hope. Make every supposed goal find some new innocence, a feverish forwardness for those who are stumbling in the heaviness of morning.
About the Author
René Char (1907-88) is one of the most important modern French poets. Admired by Heidegger for the profundity of his poetic philosophy, he was also a hero of the French Resistance and in the 1960s a militant anti-nuclear protester. Associated with the Surrealist movement for several years and a close friend of many painters?notably Braque, Giacometti and Picasso?he wrote poetry which miraculously, often challengingly, confronts the major 20th century moral, political and artistic concerns with a simplicity of vision and expression that owes much to the poet-philosophers of ancient Greece.
