Allegiance

In the streets of the city, there is my love.

It hardly matters where it goes in the divided time.

It’s no longer my love: anyone can talk to it.

It no longer remembers who, exactly, loved it.

It seeks its peer in the wish of faces.

The space it covers is my fidelity.

It designs hope, then, lightly, puts it off.

I live within it like happy flotsam.

Unbeknownst to it, my liberty is its treasure!

In the great noonday where its flight comes into view,

My solitude digs in.

In the streets of the city, there is my love.

It hardly matters where it goes in the divided time.

It’s no longer my love: anyone can talk to it.

It no longer remembers who, exactly, loved it

And lights it from afar so that it doesn’t fall!

René Char