Mute Objects of Expression (23 page)

True, the sun prevents us from seeing the stars in daylight, but one imagines the interstellar night, darkening the sky, giving it this leaded appearance.

If we so love to come to the Mediterranean region, it's because of this, to enjoy the night in broad daylight and under the sun, to relish this marriage of day and night, this constant presence of the interstellar infinity, which lends its gravity to human existence. Alliance rather than marriage. Here no illusions as in the North, no distraction
by the phantasmagoria of clouds. Here everything comes about beneath the gaze of temporal eternity and spatial infinity.

Thus everything assumes its eternal character, its gravity.

Events like an overcast sky, a thunderstorm, a hurricane, seem to me of a sordid nature: they are routine procedures, terrestrial laundry. I like areas where this tedious hydrotherapy occurs as seldom as possible, happens briefly.

A thunderstorm like a shower, the ensuing sun as a dryer; really, my dear Beethoven, was it worth making such a grandiose production of this? Instead, take a look at Leonardo da Vinci's storm, in which the importance of such a meteor is put in its rightful place.

It's along the lines of what just precedes that there should be a continuation and completion of the poem whose
opening
would be fairly close to what follows:

 

 

At the place known as “La Mounine” not far from Aix-en- Provence
One April morning around eight o'clock
The sky though limpid through the foliage
Appeared to me mingled with shadow.

 

One might have said that the rancorous night
To avenge its retreat from above these regions
Had wished to drain the blue-black ink
From its octopus heart on this occasion

 

Or perhaps, I reflected, infused drop by drop,
Are we dealing with the poison whose dread name
Strangely close to its color
Begins like
ciel
and ends like
azure

 

Why no! The atmosphere was such
That I couldn't for whatever reason
Hope to see some term of comparison
Provided by the liquid element.

 

What we have here is a heavy gas either from congestion
Or else the result of some explosion
Within a sealed chamber of a billion or just one
Petal of blue violet . . .

 

Etc
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 

But what matters now is to set our mind to rest, let it forget this, take up other things, and meanwhile feed slowly, in small bites –
from the mucous layers, from the pulp – of this truth whose bark we've scarcely nicked.

One day, in a few months or a few years, when this truth at the core of our being has become habitual, taken for granted – maybe, upon rereading the awkward, labored pages just above, or else on contemplating afresh a Provence sky – I may in one simple, leisurely sweep write this
Poem Struck in Afterthought on a Provence Sky
, which was promised by the notebook title, but which – through excessive passion, infirmity, scruples – we've not yet been able to enjoy.

 

Designed by David Bullen Design
Typeset in MVB Verdigris with Perpetua display
Printed at Kromar of Winnipeg, Manitoba
The paper is 55 lb. recycled vellum

Copyright © Editions Gallimard, Paris, 1976

 

English translation copyright © Lee Fahnestock, 2008
First Archipelago Books Edition, 2008

 

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the prior written permission of the publisher.

 

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Ponge, Francis.
[Rage de l'expression. English]
Mute objects of expression / by Francis Ponge ;
translated from the French by Lee Fahnestock.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.

eISBN : 978-1-935-74449-8

 

Archipelago Books
232 Third Street, #A111
Brooklyn, New York 11215
www.archipelagobooks.org

 

Distributed by Consortium Book Sales and Distribution
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Portions of “Carnation” and “Mimosa” first appeared in
Vegetation
(1988, Red Dust) and
The Nature of Things
(1995, Red Dust)

 

 

This publication was made possible with support from Lannan Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency, and the French Ministry of Culture – Centre National du Livre.