Robert Desnos, J’AI TANT RÊVÉ DE TOI translated by Erin Moure
I'VE DREAMED OF YOU SO MUCH
I’ve dreamed of you so much that you lose your reality.
Is there still time to reach that living body and to kiss on that mouth the
birth of the voice so dear to me?
I’ve dreamed of you so much that my arms, used to crossing my own
chest when I hug your shadow, would perhaps no longer bend to fit
your body’s contours.
And that, faced with the real appearance of what haunts and rules me all
these days and years, I’d surely turn to shadow.
O feelings held in the balance.
I’ve dreamed of you so much that it’s surely too late to wake up. I sleep
standing, body exposed to all appearances of life and love and you,
who are all that matters to me today, how less likely it is that I could
touch your brow and lips than those of any passerby.
I’ve dreamed of you so much, walked, spoke, slept with your ghost that all
that’s left to me perhaps, and even then, is to be ghost among ghosts,
a hundred times more shadow than the shadow that struts and shall
strut jauntily across the sundial of your life.
World Poetry Review 