The long sobs
Of violins
Of autumn
Wound my heart
With a monotonous
Languor.
All breathless
And pale, when
The hour sounds,
I remember
The old days
And I cry;
And I go
In the ill wind
That carries me
Here, there,
Like the
Dead leaf.
Translation of Paul Verlaine’s poem, Chanson d’Automne. The first 3 lines were broadcast by the BBC as signal to the French Resistance. that Operation Overlord (the Normandy Landings of June 6th 1944) was about to begin.
Dedicated with thanks to my son who accompanied me here in September to the beaches of Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno, Sword. on this 80th anniversary year of the end of WW2. Their windswept emptiness a paradoxical epitaph.
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