Robert Desnos, J’AI TANT RÊVÉ DE TOI translated by Chris Clarke
I’VE DREAMED OF YOU SO MANY TIMES
I’ve dreamed of you so many times that you don’t seem real anymore
Is there yet time to reach this living body and to kiss upon these lips the
birth of a voice that is dear to me?
I’ve dreamed of you so many times that my arms, grown used to
wrapping around your shadow as they cross over my breast, will no
longer bend to the shape of your body, perhaps
And that, before the real appearance of that which has been haunting me
and steering me for days and years, I would become a shadow, most
likely
O scales of sentimentality
I’ve dreamed of you so many times that it is now most likely too late for
me to awaken. I’m asleep on my feet, this body exposed to all the
facades of life and of love, and you, the only one that counts for me
today, I am less able to touch your forehead and lips than the first
lips and the first forehead I see
I’ve dreamed of you so many times, walked, spoken and slept with your
ghost so many times that perhaps, and nevertheless, there is nothing
more left to me than to be a ghost among ghosts and a hundred
times more shadow than the shadow that wanders and will wander
lightheartedly across the sundial of your life.
World Poetry Review 