[Un Citadin / A City Dweller]

The street I walk along I often see

As if I'd long since left the moving surface

Of the world for the endless other side that disperses

Us all some day without return but free

Of care. I apply myself so well to this fragile proceeding

That very quickly my gaze ceases to be

Part of the cloudy clump of hope and memory

I'll have given my name to. But for this to succeed,

A feeling of absolute happiness has to make

Itself felt, as if from outside me, so much

That at that moment the very street has a hunch

That it, the entire city, and its uncertain space

Have become one with the mobile but faithful pattern

Of phrases written by our steps when we move about.

I no longer know who's walking and marking out

The ground, bit by bit, to the corner. My gaze then patterns

Itself on tomorrow's unknown eyes, which will shine

When from the roofs, posthumous and vague, mine glow,

And my invisible trace on the asphalt below   

Might guide the élan of hardier passersby.

Will they know what I sometimes suspect: what appears

To be the distracted gaze with which we see

The world is the world itself?—It sees and hears

Itself through the thin transparency of our screens.