Passer-by, these are words. But instead of reading <br /> I want you to listen: to this frail <br /> Voice like that of letters eaten by grass. <br /> <br />Lend an ear, hear first of all the happy bee <br />Foraging in our almost rubbed-out names. <br /> It flits between two sprays of leaves, <br />Carrying the sound of branches that are real <br /> To those that filigree the still unseen. <br /> <br />Then know an even fainter sound, and let it be <br /> The endless murmuring of all our shades. <br />Their whisper rises from beneath the stones <br /> To fuse into a single heat with that blind <br /> Light you are as yet, who can still gaze. <br /> <br /> May your listening be good! Silence <br />Is a threshold where a twig breaks in your hand, <br /> Imperceptibly, as you attempt to disengage <br /> A name upon a stone: <br /> <br />And so our absent names untangle your alarms. <br /> And for you who move away, pensively, <br /> Here becomes there without ceasing to be.<br /><br />Yves Bonnefoy<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/passer-by-these-are-words/
