Lost in the woods, I cut off a swarthy bough
and thirstily lifted its whisper to my lips:
perhaps it was the voice of the weeping rain,
a broken bell or a rent heart.

Something that, from so far off, seemed to me
to be hidden deep down, covered by the earth,
a cry muffled by immense autumns,
by the moist, imperfect darkness of the leaves.

But there, waking from the dreams of the wood,
the hazel branch sang under my mouth
and its wondering odour climbed into my reason

as though I were suddenly sought by the roots
that I abandoned, the earth lost with my childhood,
and I stopped, stricken by the wandering aroma.