Natural histories

He surely will be getting married today. 

It should have been yesterday.
Dressed for a gala, he was ready.

He was only waiting for his fiancée.
She didn't come. 
She tarried. 

Magnificent, he strolled
with the allure of an Indian prince 
and brought the customary rich presents. 

Love kindled a burst of colors 
and his aigret quivered like a lyre. 

His fiancée does not arrive.

He climbs to the top of the roof 
and from its edge beholds the sun. 

He sounds his diabolical cry: 

"Leon! Leon!" 

Thus does he call his fiancée.
He sees nothing come, and no one answers. 
The birds, accustomed to this,
do not even raise their head. 
They are bored of admiring him.
He comes down and enters the courtyard, 
so sure of his own beauty 
that he is incapable of rancor. 

His wedding will be tomorrow. 

And, not knowing what to do 
for the rest of the day, 
he heads toward the porch. 
He climbs its stairs, 
like the stairs of the temple, 
with an officious tread. 

He picks up his tailed robe 
so heavy from eyes 
that cannot detach themselves. 

He repeats the ceremony one more time.

It is the hour when, bored with wandering,
the black insect returns to the promenade
and tidies up his domain.

First he rakes his narrow sandy paths. 

He makes sawdust that he piles 
on the threshold of his hideaway. 

He files the root of the tall grass,
appropriate for attacking with. 

He rests. 

Then he mounts once more his minuscule watch.
 
Has he finished? Is it broken? 
He rests again for a little while. 

He returns home and closes his door.
 
A long while he turns the key 
in the delicate lock. 

Then he listens; 

nothing alarming outside. 

But he does not find security. 

And, like a small chain 
whose teeth a pulley gnashes, 
he descends into the depths of the earth. 

He no longer hears anything. 

In the mute countryside, 
the poplars stand erect like fingers in the air, 
pointing toward the moon.

He glides upon the basin, like a white sleigh, 
from cloud to cloud. For he is hungry only for the snowy clouds 
that he sees born, move, and become lost in the water.
 
He desires to grab one from the waters. He aims with his beak, 
and he plunges suddenly, his flight dressed in snow.

Then like a woman's arm emerging from a sleeve, he withdraws. 

He has nothing. 

He sees: the scared clouds have disappeared. 

He stays disenchanted only a moment, 
for the clouds tarry a little before returning, and, 
over there, where the water's undulations die, 
here is one forming anew. 

Softly, on his little pillow of feathers, 
the swan paddles and approaches. . . . 

He tires himself out fishing for vain reflections, 
and perhaps he will die, victim of this illusion, 
before catching a single piece of cloud. 

But what am I saying? 

Each time he plunges, he digs with his beak 
into nourishing silt and returns with a worm.
 
He fattens himself like a goose.

Nothing bit this evening, 
but I felt once more a rare emotion. 

As I held my pole with line out, 
a kingfish landed on it. 

There is no more striking bird. 
It seemed like a giant blue flower 
at the end of a long stem. 
The pole bent under its weight. 
I dared not breathe, proud to have been taken 
for a tree by a kingfisher. 

And I was certain that he did not take off from fear, 
but because he believed he was only passing 
from one branch to another.

It is my beloved hunchback. 
She only dreams of cankers because of her hump. 

The hens do not speak to her. 
Abruptly, she bolts and attacks. 

Then she lowers her head, bends her body, 
and speeding her skinny legs, 
she strikes quickly with her strong beak,
aiming for a turkey in the middle of the circle. 

That showoff gets on her nerves. 

Thus, with her blue-stained head, its plumage frayed, 
she rages from dawn till dusk. 
She fights without cause, 
perhaps because she imagines 
that she is being mocked because of her size, 
because of her bald head, and her low tail. 

And she continually sounds a discordant cry 
that pierces the air like a knife. 

At times she leaves the courtyard and disappears. 
She gives the peaceful birds 
a moment's respite. 
But she returns, more turbulently and more shrill. 
And, frenetically, she sprawls out on the ground. 

What is she doing? 

The cunning prankster - 

she left to lay an egg in the country. 

I can find it if I choose. 

And she rolls around in the dust like a hunchback.